Middlebury can bring some unexpected, even magical, surprises.
This J-Term, the campus was witness to the premiere of Marco Motroni ’25’s Magic Show. Motroni, a Long Island native who has been practicing magic since the early age of three, has been a part of Middlebury’s track & field team, football team, orchestra and other groups on campus — and has now put on his very own magic show.
“When I think again of the inspiration this show can have, it’s really about seeing the resources Middlebury can offer. I came in there with an idea, and they could see how excited I was about it, and they really worked with me,” Motroni told The Campus.
Even half an hour before the show began, Wilson Hall was packed to the gills. The Grille was sponsoring the show, and everyone wanted the best seats and treats they could get in the house. A long line formed from the front entrance spanning to the back doors of McCullough Student Center. As everyone vied for a good seat, Motroni, accompanied by big band music that played over the speakers, walked around the crowded room, greeting the guests.
By 5:30 p.m., the hall was crowded with students anxiously waiting for the show to start. Shortly after, the doors closed, and unlucky students who had come too late to snag a seat looked on through the windows.
Then, at exactly 5:43 p.m., Motroni appeared from behind the stage with a white light shining upon him, wearing a grey sweater and black suit.
He then explained that he wanted the show to be about memories of Middlebury, revealing a bowl filled with index cards that members of the crowd had written their memories on. Some cards were yellow, labeled with the names of certain drinks that students remembered. Motroni then asked a volunteer to pick a random card, which he then gave to a football player without showing the magician. Motroni then magically revealed that the drink on the card was a Corona Extra, and he pulled one from his coat pocket, along with a bottle opener, before giving it to the football player to drink.
For Motroni, the show was not just about magic but also the importance of memory.
“A huge part of what I want the audience to lean into, especially in the half to three-quarters range of the show, is the memories we made at Middlebury,” he said.
The crowd gave a round of applause. For his next trick, Motroni pulled out a deck of cards and walked into the audience. He gave one of the students a card without seeing it and then put it inside the deck. The crowd waited in anticipation as he suddenly burned through the rest of the deck with pyrotechnics with the fire stopping at the card the student picked.
Motroni then brought a friend from the track team on stage and showed him shapes on an index card. He told him to remember them as best he could but warned his magic would make him forget one of the shapes. The magician showed the card to the audience, who learned the shapes, while he tried to make his volunteer forget the shapes on the cards. The music in the hall became mystical, until Motroni revealed that the student had forgotten that a heart was one of the shapes on the card. Slightly embarrassed, the track athlete (half-jokingly) ran out of the hall.
Despite a few technical mishaps throughout his act, Motroni played off the show’s snafus with charisma and tact. And even with a large crowd, the show was not at all rigid.
“It was an idea three months in the making,” Motroni explained.
In his next few tricks, he guessed the thoughts of other students and drew the same pictures that they were simultaneously drawing, all while explaining the importance of memories at Middlebury. He then brought two friends on stage and gave them each a card from a deck. After they chose their cards, he ripped them apart, before ‘magically’ fusing the halves together so that each could have a card to remind them of this moment.
For his final trick, Motroni asked another friend to come on stage. He gave him a picture and told him to draw what he saw, but the student spelled out the image. Motroni then asked him to pick a random card, which was a nine of hearts, before he revealed that the image the student saw was a blue monkey. He then revealed a poster on the side of the stage, which was previously hidden, of a blue monkey holding a nine-of-hearts. The crowd erupted into applause, which only became louder once Motroni took off his sweater to reveal his T-shirt was also of the blue monkey holding the nine-of-hearts. In a masterful bait and switch, his last big reveal was that he was giving away free T-shirts of the monkey holding the nine-of-hearts.
Looking back at his legacy, and considering that many in the crowd were also seniors, Motroni said he wanted them to leave with something they would never forget.
“We’re graduating soon, and I’m not ready to graduate, and I’ve really enjoyed my time here, and looking back on memories is something I wanted to make part of the show,” he added.
The performance was a labor of love that had a Do-It-Yourself flair, according to Motroni.
“The main message is that this can be you, if you have an idea and want to put something on, you can actually put on a show.”
Correction 1/23/25: This article has been updated to correct the misspelling of several instances of Marco Motroni '25's name.
