Photo by Richard Faverty ©

It’s true! Back in January of 2011 a good friend of mine hosted a MothUP event, based on The Moth, a show on NPR where people get up and tell true stories in front of a live audience. It was at this story telling party that I met Robert Strong, the Comedy Magician. 

Robert’s been performing since 1985 and has taken his act all around the world. Some of the stories Robert has told during the story telling parties have been about his career performing on cruise ships, performing with bunnies and even performing in the middle of the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia. He has five TEDx talks under his belt (five!) and has performed for two US Presidents. Here is Robert doing his thing at the TEDx Berkeley event:

Photo by Armand Niederberger ©

Robert has been at this a long time and he has accomplished a lot but I have to admit, I think I was most blown away when I found out that Robert produced and hosted a series called Comedy Talks.  Comedy Talks was a series of conversations where Robert sat with a panel of three comedic legends such as Carol Channing (of Hello Dolly! fame as well as having the honor of being the lady who gave Clint Eastwood his first on screen kiss!), Robert Morse (you may know him as Bert Cooper from AMC's Mad Men) and George Segal (who played opposite Elizabeth Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ) and got them to open up about their careers, personal lives and tips of the trade. If you're a comedy fan, these  videos are not to be missed. Check out these clips:

However, a magician can't give away all of his secrets and in this interview for SF Weekly, Robert explains why.

At the last story party, I confessed to Robert that I'm terrible at remembering jokes so he told me one I was sure to remember. It was short and funny, but true to form, I had completely forgotten it by the time I got home! Maybe I should try doing some illusions instead.  -S.