MAVEN, Max (1950 – 2022). Max Maven’s Professional Performance Props and Apparatus. Includes the gimmicked box and paperback books Emerson’s Pegasus Page; locks, keys, and the weighted rope for his presentation of Annemann’s Seven Keys to Baldpate routine; spirit slates for the production/appearance of messages; tape used for Maven’s routine of “seeing with the fingertips” or “x-ray eyes”; force cards and the final revelation scroll used to prediction the selection of a song title; a homemade (and gimmicked) display box with various mounted coins for a dual reality effect; a vintage Himber wallet; a plexiglass box with metal hasp closure; white and black balls for Maven’s well-known Kurotsuke effect; a CD of outro music for his one-man show Thinking in Person, Astrological force/birthday book handmade/homemade by Maven and hand-lettered by him; various sub-rosa gimmicks; several packs of playing cards, including an ESP deck; and more. All props contained in a rolling suitcase owned and used by Maven, with his business card tucked inside.
While the props contained in this case may seem to the uninitiated as overly simple or merely ordinary objects, they were used – over the course of a career that spanned some six decades – to create innumerable miraculous feats when presented and brought to life on stage by Max Maven.
The devices offered here were used by Maven as stand-alone effects, in nightclubs, at countless conventions and in comedy clubs, and perhaps most significantly as integral elements of his one-man show Thinking in Person. The latter production was developed, written, and refined over the course of nearly twenty years, and took Maven from Los Angeles to New York and many destinations in-between. Thinking in Person was hailed by critics as “a new form of participatory theater” (People magazine), “wonderfully esoteric” (Chicago Tribune), and by the New York Times as “category-defying mind reading show that veers info conceptual art.”
It was Maven's manipulation of thoughts – with assistance from these apparently guileless props — due in no small part to his force of personality, cerebral scripting, and singular take on the art of mentalism — that led to countless moments of astonishment.