(SOUTH ORANGE, NJ) -- The South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC) presents The Unwitting Magician on Wednesday, September 16, 2026 at 7:00pm. Is it a play? Sort of. Is it a reading? Kind of. Is it a magic show? Sure. With a magician? Definitely not.
The Unwitting Magician, created by playwright and director Jeremy Dobrish, defies every category you try to put it in, and that is precisely the point. It comes to SOPAC for one night only on September 16, and it is unlike anything else you will see this year.
What Actually Happens: A lone actor steps onto a bare stage. On a music stand sits a sealed manila envelope containing a script they have truly never seen. As they read it aloud for the very first time, impossible things begin to occur. The performer is swept into a whirlwind of genuine feats and playful surprises, becoming an unwitting magician before your eyes, with no idea what is coming next or how any of it works. The magic is real. The surprise is genuine.
The Question That Stays With You: The Unwitting Magician raises genuine questions about free will, manipulation, and the nature of performance itself, questions the audience will still be turning over long after the curtain falls. This is not a novelty act. It is intellectually serious theater that happens to contain moments of stunning wonder.
One Night, One Actor, Gone Forever: The performer does the show once and never does it again. That is not a limitation; it is the engine of the piece. Every production is genuinely fresh, a new actor, a new audience, a new experience that will never exist in quite this way again. What you see on September 16 will never be repeated.
It just might be the most different and fascinating time you spend in a theater.
September 16’s performance is unwittingly in the hands of Maplewood’s own Becky Gulsvig.
For more information or to purchase tickets, click here. South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC) is located at One SOPAC Way in South Orange, New Jersey.
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