Leland Faulkner

Leland Faulkner
Born	1957 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Leland Faulkner (born in 1957) is a mime, magician, and comedian. His love for magic was stirred after attending a magic show in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in the mid 1960”s. The magician was John Calvert.

Biography

His routines for Troublewit, Chapeaugraphy, and his performance of Shadowgraphy have garnered him accolades from his peers as being highly original, entertaining, and innovative.

As a magic inventor he has created multiple effects like the multiplying eye-glasses, a version of the Chinese sticks using microphones, and a hilarious gag of being electrocuted by a faulty microphone, where his costume smokes and sparks fly from the microphone.

Leland’s theatre career was developed under the mentorship of Tony Montanaro, the legendary mime and teacher with whom Leland partnered for three years. Since those early years, Leland has worked around the world headlining events like the Shanghai Comedy Festival, Masters of Magic, Abbott's Get-Together, The Yankee Gathering, Conference on Magic History, The Battle of the Magicians, Magician Alliance of Eastern States, the International Arts Carnival in Hong Kong, The Phyzgig Festival, The Moisture Festival, a multi-city tour of Japan, showcases at The Kennedy Center, Village of Tales, in Ojai, CA. The International Children's Festival in Calgary, Canada, and was a featured artist at international circus festivals in Montreal, Canada, Wuqiao, China, Ankara, Turkey, and Izhevsk, Russia.

Leland presently tours, teaches, devises and directs for a living. Over the last few years he wrote and directed an original production Shadowplay at Virginia Commonwealth University, taught at The Very Physical Comedy Institute hosted by Celebration Barn Theatre, inspired teachers at the Tennessee Arts Academy, taught movement for opera singers at The Castleton Artists Training Seminar, and was the physical comedy director for The St. Louis Repertory Theatre’s production of One Man Two Guvnors.

He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

His substantive career within the film and television industry has included lecturing on editing, and technical work for The Hollywood Film Institute, Theatrical Video Design for The Slightly Askew Players of California, and he was an artist/consultant to Robert Zemeckis and Castle Rock Pictures on the feature film The Polar Express. In 1997 he won a Cine Eagle for As Luck Would Have It, and in 2007 won a national Award of Excellence for his documentary film Theatre & Inspiration. He has won the Maine Short Film Competition for his short fiction film The King O’ Cats starring Avner Eisenberg and Nancy Smithner. His film won Best Children’s Feature at the International Independent Film and Video Festival in New York City.

Most recently he played the role of a not so wise wizard in a film parody of Shakespeare’s Richard the Third titled Richard Cubed produced by BooDog Films.

References

• http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4317755/