Lisa Condit, director of marketing and pr, spoke with Piff the Magic Dragon before he brings his Lucky Dragon Tour to Worcester on Friday, March 8. Read on for highlights from the interview, or listen to the full conversation below.
Lisa: We hope you’re bringing Mr. Piffles with you when you come to the theatre.
Piff: Who are you more excited about? Me or the dog?
Lisa: You’ve got a lot of fans from “America’s Got Talent” who are excited to see you. How did you come up with the concept for your act?
Piff: I was a magician for a number of years, but I was terrible because I have a grumpy looking face. I’m not grumpy, I just have a grumpy looking face. I was like the Eeyore of magic! This wasn’t good. One day I went to a costume party, but I didn’t have a costume. I asked my sister, and she said she had a dragon outfit I could wear. So I went to the party and no one else was in costume. Just me! So I was appropriately grumpy for the first time ever. A friend said I should do this in my act. I thought, “Let’s give it a go.” Everyone loved it. Apparently a grumpy guy in a dragon outfit… hilarious!
Lisa: A little tweak can make all the difference.
Piff: A year later I was doing a show, and I thought, “What this act needs is a gimmick!” The woman who was running the venue had a chihuahua and she put it in the show. It was so funny, the next day we went out and we found Mr. Piffles. That was nine and a half years ago, and we’ve been together ever since.
Lisa: Tell us about the journey to “America’s Got Talent.”
Piff: I got a small part in a big show in Las Vegas. “America’s Got Talent” has a crazy reach. It’s like “The Tonight Show” used to be. I went on “America’s Got Talent,” and suddenly everyone in America knew about magic dragons.
Lisa: What should we look forward to when you come to the theatre?
Piff: We do a mixture of new tricks and old favorites. We use so many people from the audience, it’s like a brand new show every night because anything can happen, and it usually does on stage.