TORONTO — Murray Sawchuck, a Canadian magician working in Las Vegas, is accusing another act of stealing one of his biggest illusions.
The Burnaby, B.C. native told the Las Vegas Sun that touring act The Illusionists are doing the locomotive vanishing act he performed on season five of America’s Got Talent.
“I feel completely betrayed and ripped off,” Sawchuck told columnist Robin Leach. “It’s an exact copy of my steam-train illusion I designed and invented.”
The Illusionists — Dan Sperry, Jeff Hobson, Andrew Basso, Kevin James, Mark Kalin, Joaquin Kotkin and Jinger Leigh — are currently on tour in Australia.
“They’ve honed their own signature acts over years in the business, so why steal mine?,” said Sawchuck, who is the headline magician at the Tropicana in Las Vegas.
“I designed and created it and never gave anyone else permission to use my idea. There has never been an illusion with a steam-train locomotive before I created mine for the television show.”
Sawchuck, 40, said The Illusionists should, at the very least, give him credit.
But, according to reviews of the show, The Illusionists make the locomotive appear on stage — not disappear.
In addition, Sawchuck’s illusion is similar to one David Copperfield performed on television in 2009, when he raised a car from the Orient Express train into the air and made it vanish.
BELOW: Watch Murray Sawchuck make a locomotive disappear on America’s Got Talent in 2010 and David Copperfield make a train car disappear in 2009.
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