Penn & Teller have been performing their unique brand of comedy and magic at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas for more than a decade. But it was in New York City, exactly 30 years ago, that the duo first made their mark in the world — which means their six-week Broadway engagement, starting July 7 at the Marquis Theatre, is a homecoming to celebrate.
In the spring of 1985, Penn & Teller debuted Off-Broadway at the Westside Theatre; the engagement unexpectedly blossomed into two-year run, garnered an Obie Award, and spawned two subsequent engagements on Broadway. “New York meant everything to us,” says Penn Jillette, the larger and more outspoken of the two. “Before that we were just party trash; we had been working together for about 10 years, doing street performing, Renaissance festivals, you know, carnival stuff. Our dreams kind of ended at Off-Broadway. We never thought that we would have a chance to be more successful than that. So getting to Broadway took us by surprise, as did Vegas.”
What makes their success all the more surprising is that Jillette confesses he never actually wanted to be a magician in the first place: He began his performing career as a street juggler and musician. “What I hated about magic was that it is based on lies,” he explains. “But then I met Teller, while I was still in high school, and he had this idea that you could tell the truth while doing magic.”
Teller — who legally dropped his first and middle names and uses only the mononym — is the silent and more diminutive partner in the Penn & Teller stage act. In real life he is an erudite speaker — not surprising, given he is a former English and Latin high school teacher. And he is most eloquent on the subject of magic.
“I had a passion for magic since the age of 5,” says Teller. “In high school I had a teacher and a mentor who was also a magician, and we spent a great deal of time talking about magic and the strange place that it occupies in theater. [Samuel Taylor] Coleridge called theater a willing suspension of disbelief, where you pretend that the stick the guy is holding up is a sword, and when he slides it under his opponent’s elbow, you pretend that it is actually going through his chest. Magic is a peculiar form of theater in which the thing that is representing a sword has to actually look like a sword, and look like it is going through his chest — and this is happening before your very eyes. So magic is a very shocking and intense kind of theater because your eyes are telling you one thing and your brain is telling you another. What you are seeing comes into intense collision with what you know; it is not exactly a comfortable feeling.”
Teller says that keeping mute when performing is “a very productive artistic rule” that they made for themselves. In one act, Jillette sings the popular children’s song “I’m a Little Teapot,” with Teller playing the role of the teapot. “Penn lifts me by my elbow and pours tea out of me onto the stage. It is a very curious presentation of a levitation and it seems like the most natural possible thing. Now, if I had to chitchat at that moment, it wouldn’t be nearly as good,” Teller explains. “We also play on this a lot. Within 30 seconds of the commencement of the show it is very clear that I have quietly spoken to an audience member but you haven’t happened to have heard me. That kind of game goes on quite frequently during the show, where you know it must have been me talking, but of course I would never own up to that!”
Penn & Teller share Libertarian values, atheism, and a skepticism of all claims about the supernatural. (Jillette has been known to write “There is no God” when signing autographs for fans, and has, upon request, even signed a Bible or two with that creed.) “Our show doesn’t deal directly with any politics at all,” says Jillette, “but the basic idea becomes political because the subtext is, If two dirtballs like us can lie to you this easily, how easy is it for someone who really has strong and sinister motives? We use the word swindle proudly,” he continues. “I love the fact that we always let people know that we are doing tricks; that makes it, to me, beautiful.”
Describing their relationship over the past four decades, Teller says: “Penn and I work together more smoothly and with less screaming fights than we used to have. We still fight all the time and with the same level of venom and self-righteous intensity, but the fights are shorter, and they are always about the art, never about politics or finances. We are both very strongly opinionated about what makes a good piece on stage, and those things often come into conflict. What is the use of having an artistic partner if your partner agrees with you?”
The process of aging — Jillette just turned 60 this year and Teller is seven years his senior — doesn’t faze them too much. “You cut your clothing according to your cloth,” notes Teller, adding, “I don’t hang upside down as much as I used to, because that can be very hazardous to someone over the age of 50.” The big change, according to Jillette, is that their act has become more edgy. “We’ve gotten weirder, stranger, and bolder as we have gotten older,” he says. “The world has decided to give us enough rope to hang ourselves, and we are using it. And at some point, maybe, the invisible hand of the free market will come in and slap us down and say, ‘Boys, you’ve gotten too weird, you had better go back to the carnival.’ But people seem to enjoying the shows, and although that shocks me to my very heart, it also fills me with joy.”
Jillette credits their Vegas hosts for having provided them with the opportunity to keep pushing the envelope in their acts. “In Vegas they’ve got bigger fish to fry — they’ve got slot machines and so on. And there is no more freedom you can get than the freedom of being ignored. We’ve just got these 1,500 seats over in the corner called the Penn & Teller Theater, and as long as we put asses in those seats, the casino does not care what we do.”
Penn & Teller’s new Broadway show will include material developed for the Vegas shows, including their latest: the Vanishing African Spotted Pygmy Elephant Act, a stunt that apparently took them six years to perfect. (It’s your guess as to whether a real elephant is involved or not.) But audiences from the Off-Broadway and original Broadway shows will also recognize some of their signature work, such as Jillette’s famous fiery monologue, in which he explains the steps of the traditional fire-swallowing act even as he dazzles us while performing that very trick at the same time.
Oh, and Penn & Teller are also going to pull a live rabbit out of a hat.
“That’s a trick that you’ve seen represented on every magician’s business card since the beginning of time, but I will warrant that no one has ever seen it before,” says Teller. “I’ve never actually seen that trick done myself, because it is much harder than you would ever believe it could possibly be.”
Teller adds that despite their past successes in New York, returning to Broadway is a challenge for him. “Show business is not a club that you are ever in — you are always paying your dues and you are only as good as your last appearance,” he explains. “So I come in with exactly the same level of trepidation I came in with 30 years ago.” For his part, Jillette declares, “I think we are coming back to Broadway with the best show that we have ever done, and I am really excited. I just can’t wait to eat a grilled cheese in a diner at 2 a.m.”
Privacy Policy
Last updated and effective as of January 14, 2019
Introduction and Your Acceptance of These Terms
Broadway Direct ("Us", "We", "Our") knows that your personal information is very important to you, and We respect your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how your personal information is collected, used, and protected and the choices available to you with respect to Our handling of your data. This Policy applies to all visitors to Broadway Direct.com, Our mobile services, services available via telephone, and those transactions that take place in person, by postal or electronic mail. (Collectively, the "Site"), including ticket sales, comments on articles, and any information provided to Us.. By visiting this website, you consent and agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy and to the collection, use and storage of your information by Us. From time to time, We may change this Privacy Policy. When We do, the “Last Updated” line above will be revised. You are responsible for regularly reviewing this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this Site following the posting of a changed Privacy Policy indicates your acceptance of the changes. Unless We provide you with specific notice, no changes to Our Privacy Policy will apply retroactively. Please also refer to our Terms of Use and Lottery Terms & Conditions. If you require any more information or have any questions about Our privacy policy, please feel free to contact Us by email at [email protected].
Information We Collect
Information we collect directly from you: Your provision of your personal information to Us is completely voluntary; it is not a statutory or contractual requirement. Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) is information that is uniquely identifiable to you, such as your name, address, email address, phone number, credit card number and other personal information that is not otherwise publicly available. Certain features of Our website may require that you provide Us with your personal information, including:
Contests/Sweepstakes
Surveys
Newsletter Sign-Up
Mobile Alert Sign-Up (SMS)
Contact Us (email)
Public forums (e.g. message boards)
E-commerce (ticket purchases)
To use these features, We may require you to provide your email address, mobile number, name and/or address and certain demographic information. When you give Us PII to use the features above, you expressly consent to Our collection, storage, use and disclosure of this information as described in this Privacy Policy. We may use your personal information to communicate with you about:
Your use of any of the features above;
New content on Our website;
New contests;
Prize information;
News that We think may interest you about Us;
Responses to your questions/comments to us; and
Information relating to a ticket purchase.
We may use your demographic information for in house statistics, advertising and marketing target information. Our processing of your personal information is necessary for the performance and fulfillment of the contract between us and to provide you with Our services. We will also process, transfer, disclose and preserve personal information when We have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary, to resolve disputes, enforce our agreements and otherwise required by law. You can always opt-out of receiving future promotional communications from Us; see the Choice/Opt-out section below.Information We Collect Automatically: Even if you don’t use any of the features above, when you visit Our website, We may collect certain information about you.
From your Browser. For example, Our servers keep an activity log that tracks all visitors to the website. The information in the activity log does not identify you individually. The information collected may include among other data: your IP address, your registered domain or home server, time of access, date of access, web page(s) visited, number of clicks, software crash reports, type of browser used, session identification number, search terms, search results, access times and referring website’s address. We use your IP address to help diagnose problems with Our server and to administer Our website. Your IP address is also used to gather broad demographic information, such as country of origin and geographic location. We use such data in the aggregate to run internal analyses to improve upon your experience on Our website.
Cookies. “Cookies” are small text files that are stored on your computer and record your preferences when you visit certain online pages. Our website uses cookies to track your use of the site and its features and links. If you provide Us with personal information, cookies may be linked to that information. We may use cookies to control the display of ads, to track usage patterns on the sites, to deliver editorial content, to record requests for subscriptions and to personalize information. Our cookies may contain PII and such cookies may be shared with others to the same extent indicated in below in the section regarding “Information Collected By/Shared With Third Parties”. We (or third party service providers on Our behalf) may also use cookies to collect aggregate information about web site users on an anonymous basis (“Anonymous Information”). We may share aggregate demographic and usage information with Our prospective and actual business partners, advertisers and other third parties for any business purpose.
You may occasionally get cookies from third parties with links on Our website. We do not control these cookies, and these cookies are not subject to Our Privacy Policy. You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but, if you prefer, you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies. Please note, if you chose to remove or reject cookies, this could affect the availability and functionality of Our Site. If you need help with this, contact Us at [email protected]. For more information on cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information provided by the Interactive Advertising Bureau at www.allaboutcookies.org.
Tracking Tags (also known as “web beacons,” “action tags” or “single-pixel gifs”). Our website may also use tracking tags. Tracking tags are invisible graphics embedded in the pages of Our website that are programmed to collect non-personal information about your use of Our website. Like cookies, tracking tags provide overall usage patterns for Our website that We use for analysis and to provide personalized services and advertising content.
We comply with the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising set forth by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA). You can opt-out of targeted advertising from certain providers at www.aboutads.info/consumers.
How We Use Your Personal Information
The personal information We collect allows Us to keep you posted on updates to Broadway Direct. It also helps Us to improve Our services, content, and advertising. If you don’t want to be on Our email list, you can opt out anytime by clicking the “unsubscribe” button or sending an unsubscribe email to [email protected]. From time to time, We may use your personal information to send transactional emails, such as communications about purchases and changes to Our terms, conditions, and policies. Because this information is important to your interaction with Broadway Direct, you may not opt out of receiving these communications. We may also use personal information for internal purposes such as auditing, data analysis, and research to improve Broadway Direct’s services, and customer communications. If you enter into a sweepstakes, contest, or similar promotion We may use the information you provide to administer those programs.
Information Collected By/Shared With Third Parties
Other than as provided in this Privacy Policy, we do not share your personal information with third parties.
Advertising. We partner with advertising companies who may use information from cookies and the tracking tags they place on our website to provide you with targeted advertisements about goods and services that may be of interest to you based on your use of our website and to track the effectiveness of ads served to you. These advertising company partners may anonymously track your Internet usage across other websites in their networks beyond our website. Any information that these advertising companies collect via cookies and tracking tags is generally not personally identifiable (unless, for example, you provide personal information to them through an ad or email message). You are welcome to browse the site in private/incognito mode, which means cookies will not be activated and previous cookies will not be tracked. If you need help with this, contact us at [email protected]. If you would like more information about the use of cookies and tracking tags and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, see the Network Advertising Initiatives consumer Web site at http://www.networkadvertising.org/consumer/.
Ticketing Partners. Your information may be shared with our ticketing partners (i.e. Telecharge and Ticketmaster) in order to fulfill your transaction and send you updates, special offers, and other information via electronic messages. For more information on our ticketing partner’s data collection and use practices, please review the Ticketmaster privacy policy and/or the Telecharge privacy policy. You can withdraw your consent for any promotional or marketing messages at any time by clicking “unsubscribe” on any promotional or marketing e-mails you receive or by contacting us directly at [email protected] and requesting to be unsubscribed from Telecharge or Ticketmaster.
Third Parties Doing Work for Us. Third parties have no rights to use any data We have collected on your behalf. However, We may employ other companies or individuals to perform functions on Our behalf, such as sending postal mail, email, and text messages, conducting sweepstakes/contests, prize fulfillment and promotional activities, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, processing credit card payments and providing customer service. These outside suppliers, agents and vendors have access to your personal information only as needed to perform their functions.
Third Parties with Links from Our Website. From our website, you may be able to click on links to third party sites to buy tickets and merchandise and for other purposes. These third party sites may collect information, including personal information. We are not responsible for, nor do we have access to the information they collect. The collection of this information is governed by the privacy policies on the applicable third party sites.
Social Networking Services. Our website may integrate with social networking services. We do not control such services and are not liable for the manner in which they operate. While we may provide you with the ability to use such services in connection with our website, we are doing so merely as an accommodation and, like you, are relying upon those third party services to operate properly and fairly.
When necessary. We may also release personal information when we believe, in good faith, that such release is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of Ourselves, Our clients, Our users, or others. We may disclose personal information about you to law enforcement, other government officials, or other third parties, as We, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate, in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, or other activity that is illegal or may expose Us to legal liability.
Public Forums
Please be aware that when you disclose PII through the comment feature or message board on the Site, the information may become public and accessible to all or a part of the Site community, so it is important for you to exercise discretion and appropriate caution when deciding to reveal PII in these areas. In addition, when you choose to make a posting, certain PII may be available for other users to view. We urge you to exercise discretion and caution when deciding to disclose your PII, or any other information, on the Site. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE USE OF ANY PII YOU VOLUNTARILY DISCLOSE THROUGH THE SITE VIA THESE FORUMS AND OTHER INTERACTIVE FEATURES. Please note that We reserve the right, but have no obligation, to republish content posted (including any PII contained therein) as further set forth in Our Terms of Use.
Co-Branded Pages
We may enter into relationships with “powered by” partners, business partners, sponsors, and co-branded sites (referred to here as “co-branded pages”). These might include, for example, pages that share our name and that of another entity. There may be a specific privacy policy on any such co-branded page. Any personal information that you provide when signing up at any co-branded page may be collected by, or shared with, our third party partner. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, our third party partners’ use of your personal information. If you want to learn more about other entities’ privacy practices, please review the websites of those third parties.
Transactions With Third Party E-commerce Partners, Vendors and Advertisers
When you provide personal information to one of Our Site’s third party e-commerce partners, vendors or advertisers (i.e. Ticketmaster.com, Telecharge.com), this transaction will occur in connection with the site of the e-commerce partner, vendor or advertiser, not on the Site, and, as such, the personal information you provide is collected pursuant to and controlled by the privacy policy of such e-commerce partner, vendor or advertiser. Broadway Direct is not responsible for such parties’ privacy policies and We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the applicable privacy policy of the e-commerce site with which you transact business or to contact the operator of such site for more information.
Delivery of Advertising and Other Content
In addition to ads and content that We may serve you directly, We use third-party advertising companies and marketing services companies to serve ads and other content when you visit Broadway Direct and elsewhere on the internet and in other media. Both We and these companies may use information about your visits to Broadway Direct and elsewhere to serve ads and other content to you. In the course of doing so, a unique third-party cookie may be placed or recognized on your browser by such companies. In addition, We and these companies may use Web beacons to help manage Our online advertising and content. These Web beacons enable Us and the third-party companies to recognize a browser’s cookie when a browser visits this Site and to learn which banner ads bring users to our website and to serve you ads that you may find of interest elsewhere on the internet and in other media. Both Broadway Direct and these companies may use information obtained from your visits to Broadway Direct or other websites, and information received from you offline in order to provide advertisements about goods and services and other content of interest to you across the internet and in other media. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used in this manner by Our third party advertising companies, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/optout_nonppii.asp and/or www.aboutads.info/choices. European users may opt out of receiving targeted advertising by visiting http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/. In addition, we may provide PII and Anonymous Information to marketing services companies. This may include information we received from you offline or online. These companies may combine information we provide (including PII and Anonymous Information) with personal and anonymous information they may have about you, using cookies they place or that We place on their behalf, as described in the section regarding “Cookies and Tracking Tags”. We require these companies to delete the PII we provide them. These companies may use the resulting non-personal information and such cookies for their own marketing purposes, and they may provide the same to their customers for their customer’s marketing purposes. Some of Our emails may contain tags that allow Us and Our advertisers and other partners to determine the types of content that may be of interest to you. Those tags may contain PII and may be shared with others to the same extent indicated in the section regarding “Cookies and Tracking Tags”. Those tags may not be deleted but you can opt out of receiving the emails.
Use of This Site by Children
The Site is not directed to individuals under the age of thirteen (13), and We request that such individuals do not provide personal information through the Site. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided Us with PII without the parent or guardian’s consent by, for example, misrepresenting his or her age, that parent or guardian should contact us at [email protected]. If Broadway Direct determines that it has collected personal information of children under the age of 13, Broadway Direct will immediately delete such information and any accounts believed to be held by children under 13. In addition, we may not collect or process information from a citizen of an EU member state under the age of sixteen (16) without such person’s parental consent. If you are a citizen of an EU member state under the age of 16, please tell your parents that you are using the Site and have your parents email Us at [email protected] so that We may delete any information We may have collected about you.
California Visitors
California Civil Code § 1798.83 permits California residents to request information about whether we have disclosed personal information to any third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes. California residents have the right to request in writing: (a) a list of the categories of Personal Information, such as name, email address and mailing address and the type of services provided to the customer that a business has disclosed to third parties (including affiliates that are separate legal entities) during the immediately preceding calendar year for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes and (b) the names and addresses of all such third parties. To make a request, please contact Us at the following email address: [email protected].
EU Visitors
If you are located within the European Union, you should be aware that your personal information will be transferred to the United States, the laws of which may be deemed by the European Union to have inadequate data protection. If you are located in a country outside the United States and voluntarily submit personal information to Us, you thereby consent to the general use of such information as provided in this privacy policy and to the transfer of that information to, and/or storage of that information in, the United States. We transfer Personal Information from the European Economic Area and Switzerland to the USA and other countries, some of which have not been determined by the European Commission to have an adequate level of data protection. Personal Information of EU residents will be transferred in compliance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).
Rights of EU Data Subjects
If you are a resident of the European Union, under the GDPR, European Union residents, as data subjects, have the following rights:
Right to access – This right allows individuals to obtain confirmation as to whether or not personal information concerning him or her is being processed and provide access to such personal information. It also allows individuals to request details of the processing of his or her personal information, including, without limitation, categories of recipients to whom the personal information have been or will be disclosed and purposes of processing.
Right to rectify – This right allows individuals to rectify any inaccurate personal information about him or her.
Right to restrict processing – This right allows individuals to block or suppress processing of personal data under certain circumstances.
Right to be forgotten – This right is also known as the “right to erasure”. It is an individual’s right to have personal data erased or to prevent processing in specific circumstances.
Right of data portability – This right allows individuals to move, copy or transfer personal data from one place to another in a secure manner without interrupting the integrity and usability of the information.
Right to object to processing – This right allows individuals to object to certain types of processing, including direct marketing, profiling and providing for purposes of scientific or historical research and statistics.
An EU resident has the right to access his or her personal data that We hold and to ask that their personal data be corrected or erased and to port their data. An EU resident may also have the right to object to, or request that We restrict certain processing or to withdraw consent previously provided. If you would like to exercise your rights under the GDPR, please contact us at [email protected]. If you are an EU resident and have a concern about our processing of your personal data that we are not able to resolve, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Authority where you reside. For contact details of your relevant local Data Protection Authority, please see http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/article29/item-detail.cfm?item_id=612080
Security of Your Personal Information
Broadway Direct employs reasonable security measures consistent with standard industry practice, for personal information collected through this Site, including physical, electronic and operational measures to maintain security and prevent unauthorized access. While Broadway Direct takes all appropriate steps to safeguard personal information under Our control, unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or method of storing data can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As such, We cannot guarantee that personal information supplied by users will not be accessed on Our servers, or intercepted while being transmitted to Us over the Internet. We assume no liability for any damages you may suffer as a result of interception, alteration or misuse of information during such transfers.
Retention
We will retain your information for as long as your account or inquiry is active and for a reasonable time thereafter in accordance with Our standard procedures or as necessary to comply with Our legal obligations, to resolve disputes, and to enforce Our agreements. Even if We delete some or all of your Personal Information, We may continue to retain and use aggregate or anonymous data previously collected and/or anonymize or aggregate your Personal Information. Please note that We will not be liable for disclosures of your data due to errors or unauthorized acts of third parties.
Choice/Opt Out
This Site provides users the opportunity to opt-out of receiving communications from Us, at any time, by email at [email protected], or by clicking the unsubscribe link in any email communication. The Site gives users the following options for removing their information from our database, to not receive future communications or to no longer receive our service, at any time.
Users can send mail to the following postal address: Broadway Direct 1501 Broadway 14th floor New York, NY 10036
Users can call the following telephone number: (800) 223-6715.
Users can opt-out of receiving future newsletter emails from Us by selecting the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our email. However, We are not responsible for removing your information from the lists of any third party who has previously been provided with your information or is collecting your information through their cookies. You have the right to withdraw your consent for Our processing for your personal information by contacting us at [email protected].
Correct/Update
This website gives users the following options for changing and modifying information previously provided, at any time.
Users can send mail to the following postal address: Broadway Direct 1501 Broadway 14th floor New York, NY 10036
Users can call the following telephone number: (800) 223-6715
Successors
In the event that We are, or any component of our operations is, merged with, or is acquired by, another entity, then any such successor or acquiring entity may become the successor to Our obligations with respect to the personal information that you have provided to Us, which would be necessary for the entity to effectively continue our business. By using this website, you consent to any transfer and use of such personal information by an entity assuming control of Our operations as a result of a merger, purchase of assets, or liquidation in bankruptcy or insolvency.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of this website, or your dealings with this website, you can send an email to [email protected]. Our data protection officer can also be contacted at [email protected].