As Alexander's brother Carl got older, he reduced the size of his show. Alexander increased the size of his. The following is a description of a typical Herrmann show as seen through the eyes of a spectator. After much fanfare from the orchestra, Herrmann entered. He was decked out in black velvet evening clothes with
britches. He wore the typical
top hat of the day and white gloves. The audience applauded; he bowed and smiled. He took off his gloves and made them vanish between his hands. Herrmann presented two metal cones and a beautifully decorated brass vase. He opened the lid on the vase and showed a bag of rice. All items were examined by spectators. Upon return of the items, Herrmann poured the rice into the vase and placed the lid on it. He went into the audience, walked over to a bearded gentleman and borrowed his hat. He reached over to the gentleman's beard and produced an orange from it—"Thank you. Just what I needed for this trick"—eliciting a chuckle from the audience. He returned to the stage and placed the hat on a chair and the orange on one of the tables. Herrmann asked the audience which cone they would like, "The right one or the left?" He took the selected cone and placed it upon the hat. "I will cause the rice and orange to switch places". After much by-play where he pretended to sneak the orange away from the cone, he decided not to use the cone at all. He left the cone on the empty hat and placed the orange on the table. After making a magical pass, he lifted up the cone and a pile of rice appeared on the crown of the hat. He picked up the orange and made it disappear in his hands. Then he lifted up the vase that contained the rice and showed the missing orange. From there, he would casually show his hands to be empty and produce a fan of cards from behind his knee. With the produced cards, he would go into a series of sleight of hand tricks. He concluded the card act with three people from the audience selecting cards. He placed the pack into a goblet. From the goblet, the selected cards would rise one by one. He would take the pack out of the goblet and toss them, and they would melt in mid-air. He'd pretend that he was done with cards, but his empty hands were soon filled with them. He'd take each one and scale them into the audience. Herrmann would ask an audience member to call out for one and he'd accurately toss it to him, sometimes as far as the topmost row in the gallery. Herrmann then picked up the silk top hat that he had borrowed from an audience member. One by one, he would produce a number of silver dollars from the air. After the shining coin hit the glare of the spotlight, he would toss it into the hat with a definite clink sound. He would produce a large number of dollars until the hat was full. Herrmann poured the coins into a silver tray and showed it to the audience. From there, the coins were dumped into a paper bag. He'd wrap it up and toss it to the owner of the hat. The silver dollars had changed into a box of candy. A piece of paper was left over from the package. Herrmann picked this up and rolled it into a ball. Then he proceeded to knock it through his knee. In an instant he tossed the ball of paper into the air, where it vanished. Herrmann picked up the hat and discovered many things inside—enough to fill a trunk. He thanked the owner of the hat as he returned it. As he did, he found a white rabbit inside of it. Herrmann stroked the rabbit. He pulled it apart and had two rabbits, one in each hand. He put the rabbits on the table. "If you notice," he said in his Parisian accent, "the rabbits are the same size, no?" He scooped them from the table and they melted into one. "Now, you notice that the rabbit, she is much fatter". He picked up a pistol from the table. He tossed the rabbit into the air and shot at it. The rabbit was gone. He quickly went down to the runway into the audience. He pulled the vanished rabbit from the coattails of a spectator. As he walked back to the stage, the curtain closed behind him. He stood in front of the curtain and cradled the rabbit like a baby. He proceeded to talk to the rabbit. Apparently the rabbit did not understand broken French because the rabbit turned its head toward Herrmann and cocked up one ear. This caused the audience to laugh and applaud. The orchestra picked up the pace of the music and Herrmann exited. Madame Herrmann entered, performing a
fire dance. Alexander Herrmann caught his breath and the rest of the show continued. To achieve most of his tricks in the first act, Herrmann would rely on what is referred to in magic as "body loads", one of
the seven principles of sleight of hand. Herrmann carried his loads on his body and inside his coat, placing them where he needed them. One summer evening, Herrmann was sitting backstage in his dressing room after packing his jacket. He had draped the
tailcoat over his chair. He was talking to the theatre manager, who also had his evening jacket off. When the first bell rang for the beginning of the show to start, the manager got up, put on his coat, and left. Herrmann put on his coat and gloves as he walked towards the stage. The music played his march and he entered stage right. He took his bow and went into his opening act. He took off his gloves in preparation to make them disappear when he realized that something was wrong: he wasn't wearing his coat. Without his coat, he could not go on with the first act. Instead of panicking, he set his gloves aside and picked up a pack of cards that was on the table. He did some elegant
card flourishes with them. As he was closing with some fancy cuts, he was wondering about his coat. Suddenly he had the answer. The theatre manager was also wearing a full dress suit. He must have taken Herrmann's coat. He gave the deck a final flourish. He snapped his fingers to the wings. One of his assistants came on stage. Herrmann was flinging cards out to the audience. He leaned over to the assistant and whispered, "Find the manager. He's wearing my coat." He flung a few cards until half of the pack was left. He added, "And bring me more cards." The assistant left. Herrmann took the next card and gripped it between the first and second finger of his left hand. Then he flicked his wrist, sailing the card into the audience. He then scaled two or three more cards in quick succession into the audience. His assistant came back with a few more cards. He told Herrmann that he had sent someone to look for the manager. Herrmann took the cards and scaled those. He told his assistant to bring on more cards. The audience was waving for them. So he flung them with great speed one after another. He flung a few at the balcony into the hands of a waiting spectator. The audience was getting excited over his remarkable aim. More cards were brought on. News was relayed to him that they were still trying to find the manager. Herrmann was scaling cards to the farthest reaches of the gallery with even more accuracy. The audience went wild. He was down to a few cards. He was exhausted and didn't know what else to do to stall. He looked over at the wings and saw the surprised manager. Herrmann scaled his last card and bowed. The applause was deafening. He went offstage and quickly removed the manager's jacket. Then he carefully pulled off his own from the startled manager. Herrmann checked the contents. Everything was still in its place. He carefully put on his coat and smoothed it up. He strode on stage as before. He bowed as the applause crescendoed again. He then went into his original routine. ==Herrmann the Great==