It’s hard to pin down exactly what to call Penn Jillette, because so much of what he and his partner Teller do as Penn & Teller defies definition. Their live performances—whether in Las Vegas, on Broadway, or on tour—are a bold mix of magic, illusion, and sharp-witted skepticism, aimed at exposing myths and so-called secrets.
One thing is certain, though — when Penn & Teller bring their 50th anniversary tour to the Academy of Music on May 15, it will be a true homecoming. Their journey began right here in Philadelphia.
“There is no Penn & Teller without Philadelphia,” said Jillette from his Las Vegas home. “Everything starts in Philly. Teller is from Cherry Street, blocks from the (Art) Museum and the Rocky statue. When the Bicentennial happened, Philadelphia76 hired us. We performed our first shows, separately, together, in Head House Square.
“Thinking about the huge Academy of Music… we worked back then in the little experimental black box space, Theater 5, atop the Walnut Street Theatre where we truly learned how to interact with ourselves and with audiences and do crazy stuff,” Jillette continues. “Those conversations that we had after those first shows in Philadelphia – at Jim’s Steaks or the Burger King on Walnut Street at 3 a.m. – were everything we’re doing now. That meant everything to us.”
Furthering that Philly-first narrative is Jillette’s just-published novel ‘Felony Juggler‘ and its surprisingly nostalgic story of a street performer at the top of the 1970s.
“Interviewers used to ask about my past of hopping trains, sleeping rough, hitchhiking, juggling and performing on the street and what a journey it all was, and I always said that I was as happy then as I am now,” Jillette says with a laugh. “I had a good time, and considered myself successful… in that post-hippie America nomadic culture.”
Throw in fictitious events wrapped around Jillette’s true tales of working gleefully on the street in Philadelphia then leaving for a Renaissance Fair in Minnesota — just like where Penn & Teller did — and you have ‘Felony Juggler’.
Since their auspicious start in Philadelphia, Penn & Teller have used the traditions of illusion and science – along with healthy dollops of comedy and an old-school love of carnies – in order to show off their patented brand of theatricalized skepticism in order to debunk the myths of magic. Despite the fact that Penn & Teller have done all this without the flash of a David Copperfield or the technology of digitally-enhanced magic shows, their live showcase in Las Vegas at The Rio has made the duo the longest-running headliners to play at one same hotel in Vegas history.
And when Penn & Teller aren’t in Vegas or on tour, they’ve been in their own films such as ‘Penn & Teller Get Killed’, television specials such as ‘Penn & Teller’s Home Invasion’ and long-running series like ‘Penn & Teller’s Sin City Spectacular’ and its currently-running streaming showcase, ‘Penn & Teller: Fool Us.’
“Teller and I have managed to keep our relationship artistic,” says Jillette. “Certainly, we have become best friends over these 50 years, but we have never treated this as a romantic friendship exploration. Consequentially, when we are working on new bits, we can surprise ourselves. It’s 50 years. We’re both in our 70s. We don’t care. If one of us comes to the other and says we have a bit, it’d be easy. The audience will love it. One of us will say, ‘Nah, don’t bother.’ But if one of us says to the other, ‘We have this idea, I don’t think it will work. It’s really hard. People will hate it, and it’s like nothing we’ve ever done before,’ the other one will exclaim “Let’s go! Let’s do that!”
Jillette jokes about how author William Blake once said that “Old men should be explorers,” and how he and Teller live up to that sense of discovery and provocation explosively, “consciously, aggressively and systematically trying to do the weirdest stuff of our careers.”
“And we’re very fortunate that the audiences have stayed with us.”
