Magician Jason Chessar has his audience in the palm of his hands. The Mississauga Rotary Club members watch entranced as he appears to turn a white ping pong ball into an orange one, which vanishes, reappearing as it bounces off the floor. A collective gasp emerges from the stunned group and Jason flashes a wide grin.
Like all successful magic tricks, Jason's confidence is hard won. He was born partially deaf and spoke with an audible lisp, which made him feel ashamed. “I was that shy little boy who hid behind my mom’s skirt,” he says. At his sixth birthday party he was too frightened to join his own guests but the magician hired by his parents lured him out of his room by promising to make him float.
A few years later the same magician invited Jason to work behind the scenes of his own show. Over time illusion became the magic bullet for his fear. “It gave me something to focus on rather than my fear,” he says. Jason spent hours practising his speeches in front of a mirror, and when he mastered them he incorporated them into his shows. At age l9 Jason took over the business when his mentor retired, renaming it J's Magic.
