Mark Wade

Mark with his talking magic wand, in the vest and red bow tie every vent kid in America would recognize. From the Jimmy Vee Collection.

Some people in this family need an introduction. Mark Wade's work and record does it for him. He has been called the number one children's ventriloquist in America, and that's not a nickname somebody hung on him. It's the bio line he earned, one gymnasium at a time, in front of more than half a million kids a year.^[1] I've worked conventions beside this man. I've seen the engine up close. Pull up a chair and let me tell you about Mark.

A closing magic shop and an open door

Every career in this business starts with an accident, and Mark's is a beauty. Back in high school, a friend of his bought out the stock of a magic shop that was going under. Mixed in with the wares sat booklets from the original Fred Maher Course of Ventriloquism.^[2] Mark read them. That was it. That was the whole hinge of a life.

He went on to take the Maher course in both its versions, the original Fred Maher material and the Detweiler rewrite.^[2] And here's the part I love: the kid who learned from those booklets became the man on the cover. By 2003, Maher Studios put its teaching on video, and the face and voice on that tape belonged to Mark Wade. "Successful Ventriloquism, featuring award-winning Ventriloquist of the Year, Mark Wade!" The student became the course.^[3]

Four hundred shows a year

Let's talk numbers, because Mark's numbers are silly. More than 400 kid shows a year.^[4] Over half a million children annually in schools, libraries, and fairs.^[1] And one summer, one of the biggest fair agents in the country caught his showcase at a festival convention and booked him solid as the opening act for Garth Brooks.^[2] A kid-show vent from Ohio, warming up stadium country crowds. Venue is just a detail when the act is that tight.

And the man wrote the playbook, literally. Kid Show Ventriloquism: 132 pages of proven advice, published by Maher.^[4] The sequel, Kidshow Ventriloquism Encore, launched at the 2015 ConVENTion with the first fifty copies signed and numbered.^[5] His kid-show material even exists in Japanese. I know because I have a copy in my collection.^[6] He taught his technique workshop at the Japan Ventriloquism Festival in 2004 and signed books beside Valentine Vox.^[7] When the correspondence-school era faded, Mark replaced it with something better: a Master Mentoring Program, three days at his own house in Ohio, one student at a time, and you go out on real shows with him.^[8] That's not a class. That's an apprenticeship, the way this trade always passed itself down.

The Wade doctrine

Spend enough years in front of kids and you learn things no book teaches. Mark wrote them down anyway, in columns for Newsy Vents, Dialogue, Distant Voices, Cybervent, and the IVS, and the doctrine is gold:

The kid-show sweet spot runs ages 5 to 12, and 6 to 11 is perfect, because below that the kids can't follow the bit and above it they're too cool for the room.^[9] The big 42-inch figure is too much puppet for small children.^[10] Never set up at the door end of the room, because you control what the audience sees, not just what it hears.^[11] He has a whole theory he calls the Likability Factor about why one puppet wins a room in seconds and another never does.^[12] He built four comedy techniques for children after learning the hard way that his grown-up material bombed with six-year-olds.^[13] And when the economy crashed and corporate bookings dried up, twice, the kid-show market held. Mark called it in print both times.^[14] Birthdays keep coming, recession or not.

The man who runs the family reunion

For years, the Vent Haven ConVENTion, the annual gathering of this whole worldwide family, ran because Mark Wade ran it. Executive Director, signed and dated in his own bulletins.^[15] Cybervent introduced him best: he's the one running around keeping busy for days and months before it starts, and during the whole thing.^[16] I watched that up close, working conventions alongside him. The man is a one-person logistics department wearing a colorful vest.

He also founded and served as president of the Society of American Ventriloquists.^[17] And he's a keeper of the record: Mark holds original issues of the Grapevine News, the ventriloquist bulletin of the 1940s.^[18] Performer, teacher, organizer, archivist. Pick a job this art needs done, and Mark's done it.

The partners

Rudy

A 40-inch Jack Coats figure, all carved wood, completely original, and still wearing the clothes Mark dressed him in, right down to the shoes.

Photo via Ventriloquist Central

The playbook

Kidshow Ventriloquism Encore, the 2015 sequel to the book that taught a generation how to work a room full of kids.

Photo via Cybervent

Grits and company

His country character Grits was so beloved that a Maher customer once ordered a figure with Grits's full beard copied onto it.

Photo via Cybervent

The venue answer

People love to ask who the world's greatest ventriloquist is. Mark refuses the question, and his refusal is the wisest answer anybody in this family has given: "It depends upon the venue." The great adult-room vent might die in front of children. The brilliant gospel vent might sink on a cruise ship.^[19] Greatness in this art is not a throne. It's a fit between a performer, a room, and an audience. Mark found his room forty years ago, filled it with kids, and never left.

A magic shop went bust and Fred Maher's booklets fell into the one pair of hands that would turn them into the cover of the course itself. Four hundred shows a year and he still writes the manual longhand, near enough. I hear the vest and bow tie are registered trademarks in forty gymnasiums.— Freddy Fiddlesticks, spokesdummy