Will Ash K. travel?

He will go anywhere. We charge a modest fee for appearances outside the San Francisco Bay Area.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

What are your rates?

This is probably our top question! We guarantee our prices, but don’t publish them. After you’ve seen the video, when you call there will be seven factors in the pricing:

• size of the audience
• location
• time of year
• sound system provided or not
• indoor/outdoor
• length of show
• solo or requiring others (such as the music programs)

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Isn’t Ash’s humor a little sophisticated for kids?

In a word, no. Ash is a big Disney fan, and believes that the entertainment should play at two levels: for the kids AND the adults. Also, kids are smarter than many people think. They’re not incompetent - they’re just kids!

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

What do I need to think about when planning my a birthday party in my home?

Three simple things:

• A place for “Ash” to park. He has between 50 and 200 lbs. of equipment, so by saving a space with a cone, chair, or actual car, you’ll make his day!
• Privacy. To amaze you later, he needs to set up undisturbed in the room where he’ll be performing. A separate room is ideal; a curtain across a rope is just fine. He also needs privacy when putting his equipment away.
• Timing. We recommend scheduling the show towards the beginning of the party, to encourage guests to be punctual. And please save food and drink for later: it avoids spills and stains on your furniture and rug, and prevents “food comas.”

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
How long is your show?

Ash would happily perform the whole day, but little kids (4-6) have had it after about 30 minutes, and bigger kids about 45 minutes. For our educational programs, they’re longer, typically from one to one and a half hours.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
What does he do in his show?

Always in his comic style, Ash does every kind of magic, from making normal and odd objects disappear or reappear, to switch places, to come back after destroyed, to transforming in front of your eyes, to reading kids’ and adults’ minds.

One of his strengths is how much he involves both his audience and his volunteers.

Like a great kid’s movie, Ash amuses the kids and the parents.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Who are some of your clients?

• Peninsula Symphony, Palo Alto
• San Francisco Public Library
• Holiday Tea, Top of the Mark, Mark Hopkins Hotel
• Metropolitan Club, San Francisco
• San Francisco Symphony’s Holiday Program, Deck the Halls
• Chabot Space & Science Center
• Alameda County Libraries
• Sausalito Art Festival
• San Jose Libraries

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Where does Ash perform?

The majority of our events are not open to the public. However, Ash K. does regularly MC the Caffeinated Cabaret, and you can find more information about it here:

http://caffeinatedcabaretofsanfrancisco.blogspot.com

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
What are the steps to book a show?

For the client, it is a simple matter: a phone call to discuss your needs and wants, a contract with a deposit, being ready for us when we get there, and enjoying the show.

For a performer, a typical small show is six hours from the time spent filling out the contract template, to loading the equipment, the drive, set-up, perform, break-down, drive home, and load-out. Of course, none of a performer’s time on their business is in this equation, which is of course another several hours a week, and practicing their art adds another dozen or so, at least.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Where is Ash K. from, and how did he get that name?

Balka, which is slightly East of Poland. Don’t try to find it on a map though: Liechtenstein looks like a vast empire compared to Balka. Ash’s full name is “Ashkenazi,” which most Americans find more or less impossible to say and remember, so he gave up, and had it surgically shortened. As to his title (”the Pretty Good”), his first manager hired a very inexpensive, and utterly incompetent translator, and as Ash had no idea that his correct title had been, shall we say, “mishandled” until about two years after his first gigs, it was by then too late to take back.

Please don’t ask him what his correct title was - he sulks for a day or so afterwards.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
How did Ash get into magic? What about his Manager, Kevin?

Ash’s grand-father was a professional magician, and his father was an accountant. He therefore did the proper thing and allowed the impractical gene to skip a generation.

Kevin did it as a small boy (as many do), and stopped doing it when he entered college to pursue very serious matters, which he did for some fifteen years before he accepted that he was better suited to un-serious matters.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
How long does Ash K. spend grooming his mustache?

Typically, an hour a day, which candidly is MUCH more time than he spends on a day on card magic. He is horrifically vain.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Where did Ash K. learn German & French?

He lived and worked in France and Austria. Kevin would like to point out that though he too speaks the same languages and lived in those two countries, it is a fantastic coincidence beyond his control.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
I have a fund raiser: would Ash like to perform for us?

Though we appreciate the many, many solicitations we get, Ash’s time is limited, and he’ll be more interested in requests that include the following information:

Date of Event

Production Company

PR Company

Location

Needed as a) Headliner or b) MC

Complete Contact Information

Other parties donating/participatin

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Can you tell us a bit more about Ash K.?

San Francisco’s 2nd funniest comic magician, Ash K the Pretty Good (aka Ashkenazi the Pretty Good), hales from Balka (a very small country East of Poland), and has lived in the San Francisco Bay area for some fourteen years.

Here, he met his future manager Kevin at a gig some months after arriving to America.

Born to a family of professional entertainers in the Eastern European country of Balka, Ash K. the Pretty Good began performing for paying audiences by age thirteen, and by age fourteen, allowed them to leave the room for additional payment.

Recently asked about his experience in America as a foreign national, Ash K. the Pretty Good responded, “I like it here very much. For one, I have not been incarcerated, even briefly, which is a lot better than some folks are doing both home and here. AND not a single person has had another unfortunate moment with that guillotine illusion this year. Then again, I did take it out of the show last year.”

When re-booked for at the Sausalito Art Festival, he repeatedly tried to explain that he doesn’t know how to paint. He enjoys reading about European & Asian history, crochet (traditionally, a man’s hobby in his country), and jogging.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
What about his business partner, Kevin Madden’s history?

Kevin A. Madden was born in South Lake Tahoe, California, and is the fourth generation that he knows of, on both sides his family, to get paid for playing music. He was raised by parents who worked for or performed with Igor Stravinsky, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Sarah Vaughn, Billy Eckstine, Glenn Campell, Hoagy Carmichael, Woody Herman’s Herd, the Gregg Smith Singers, Bob Florence, Harry James, Stan Getz, and Buddy Rich. If you don’t know who those people are, you will be unimpressed, and that is OK with him.

He is not only the son of two professional musicians, but both of his parents’ grandparents were professional musicians as well: one great-great-grandparent played in the Czar’s army; another great-grandparent was in John Phillip Sousa’s Band. If you don’t know who those two people are, he thinks you should turn off the TV and read more books, but will not publicly say so because of his good boundaries.

As a child, his other interests included (predictably) magic. His first business card was given to him as a gift by an aunt who daily prays for forgiveness. He quit doing magic professionally when he went to college to do “serious” things.

Kevin has since lived in Davis, Boston, Vienna, Paris, a small town in Austria named Mattersburg, Napa, Petaluma, and moved to San Francisco in 1999 to be an arts administrator. He also taught music for many years in several Bay Area school systems.

He attended UC Davis, intending to major in Political Science and minor in Japanese language, and finished an English major speaking fluent French and German. He later borrowed excessive amounts of money to earn a Master’s degree in education while further studying jazz piano, and after doing yet more serious things (especially arts education), decided he was far more adept at doing at silly things.

He lives with his carnivorous plants and magic books in San Francisco, annually rejects nominations for the A.D.D. Poster-Adult-of-the-Year, and thinks about exercising all the time.

# # #