Community Highlights: Meet Shaun Jay of Shaun AKA Productions

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shaun Jay

Hi Shaun, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My fascination with the impossible began at the age of three years old. The earliest moment of astonishment that I could remember was watching the original Ringling Brothers Circus. I have distinct memories of a female quick change artist that still remain to this day. It was a very colorful performance where a woman wearing a red outfit instantly changed it to yellow, then to blue then to green, then to purple almost instantaneously! The elephants were great, and the juggling acts were extremely skillful, but the one thing that really stuck out in my mind was this big question mark about how she was doing what she did.

Fast forward nine years. Between the initial Ringling Brothers experience and the age of 12, I would periodically visit my cousin at family gatherings who knew a few beginner magic tricks. He wasn’t a professional by any means, but knew enough to get by. This ended up being one of the highlights of my time visiting family as I always looked forward to these impromptu casual performances. These memories stuck with me and the love for astonishment always existed in the back of my mind.

At the same time, I also had a passion for drawing and creating art. I would frequently make trips to my local library and sit there for hours with a pencil and pad, sketching comic book figures from classic Marvel comics and anime characters. During one of those trips to the library, I got the idea to browse the aisles to see if they had any books on magic tricks (since they had books on pretty much everything else) and sure enough they actually did! Shortly after this discovery, I set the pencil and pad down and shifted focus to reading these books and every time I went to the library, I would sit on the floor of the aisles and curiously read these books. Eventually, I got my own deck of cards and brought them to the library and started to follow along with the books that I was reading to see if I could actually replicate what was in the instructions. It was difficult to learn as every single book that has ever been written on the subject was for right handed magicians. I was left handed so I had to reverse the directions as I was reading them. Eventually, I got good at figuring out how to do this and would check out more and more of these books from the library, often spending 3-5 hours at the library at a time.

This then led to a passion for the art of sleight-of-hand, which was honed over many years of street performing. It started with the local art festivals which then led to a street performing residency at an outdoor mall. Given the fact that I was only 12 years old at the time, I couldn’t drive, so my mom drove me around and suggested places where I could set up. She was extremely supportive and wanted to see me succeed. The best thing that I learned from these experiences was how to work for myself and easily start conversations. 22 years later, these vital skills still serve me to this day.

Besides street performing, one of the other experiences that helped me level up was studying with some of the best magicians in the world in Las Vegas. Jeff McBride and his Magic and Mystery School was an incredible experience that helped me tremendously. I had a number of mentors that helped me out along the way that helped direct me on the right path, both helping my show and my business. There’s a reason why it’s called Showbusiness. There’s the art of improving and honing your show and then there’s the completely separate animal called business.

In 2012, I randomly came across a casting call for Masterchef on FOX and applied thinking nothing of it and surprisingly, that led to an appearance on the show! The details behind that story and traveling to NYC to the many casting calls is its own crazy story that I’ll save for another interview.

Over the years as my skill level grew, I had submitted different videos to audition for different TV shows and one of them reached back out with interest! Masters of Illusion on The CW liked some of the material I sent their way and invited me to share it with their audience on their show back in 2019 which then led to many more appearances that followed.

Currently, most of my work is in the Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill area of North Carolina. I help corporate clients dramatically increase interaction and fun at their (usually boring) events via my customized shows, strolling sleight-of-hand magic, and keynote speeches. I also get invited to help families celebrate major milestones like birthdays, anniversaries and weddings.

This year, I’ll be announcing a new theater show for the public that will debut in April!

Stay tuned to shaunjaymagic.com for more updates on that!

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Ha! Smooth road? What’s that?
Definitely NOT a smooth road at all…

Starting off with the fact that much of early years of career growth and development in my career happened under the care of my very supportive single mother. That alone is stressful for both the mother and the child. There are definitely people who have had it a lot worse than me, but I have also come across others that had everything handed to them on a silver platter. Like…literally… everything. They didn’t have to work for it like I did. I think it’s much better that I had to work for it because it helps me appreciate the successes and breakthrough is a lot more than those that had everything given to them. I learned how to work for myself and make my own money.

One of the biggest setbacks, a magician or anyone that has two hands can have is carpal tunnel syndrome. In 2013, I experienced it in full force in both of my hands. That definitely was one of the biggest setbacks of my career and was one of those things that you can’t believe is happening, but it actually is. Basically, I was temporarily disabled for 6-8 months and could not use my hands. Every time I tried, I was in excruciating pain. Everything that I touched and any time I touched anything, I experienced a jolt of electrifying pain run up my arm due to inflammation and pinched nerves in the wrist. This caused me to lose sleep, lose faith in my career, and lose faith in my future. I was supposed to get surgery, but thankfully, my mom was behind the scenes doing an incredible amount of research and discovered an alternative form of therapy that did not involve surgery that ended up completely fixing my problem and restoring my hands. It took me about a year of rehab to fully gain all of my strength and back from that. Now, it’s like nothing ever happened. Pretty wild…

Another major setback was a recent one. Towards the end of August 2024, I was doing a summer tour of state and county fairs in the Midwest. I drove all the way out there and was having a great run until the end. It started like the symptoms of a common cold and gradually progressed into full-blown pneumonia which landed me in the hospital for three days while I was out there.

I thought at the time that if I just gave it a little more rest and took it easy that the sore throat would go away, but that progressed into a 103° fever that was consistently raging day and night for about four days. On the fifth day of having these symptoms I had gone to my last fair of the season and performed for the first day of the fair. Unfortunately, things had progressed to the point to major dehydration and not being able to breathe or think straight. I ended up needing to sit down during my last show on the opening day as I felt like I was going to pass out. I couldn’t continue on like this so the client was nice enough to let me bow out and I went to an urgent care provider who then proceeded to give me antibiotics. I suffered another week as I took the full course which did nothing. I then went to another urgent care provider who took a chest x-ray and confirmed the diagnosis of pneumonia in my right lower lobe of the lung. The doctor asked me if I was taking anything and I showed her the antibiotics from previous doc and she said, “Who told you to take those? I don’t know why they told you to take those because those won’t help you… Take these instead.” I tried taking the second type and they did not help either.

At this point I had been living out of a hotel room for a week, coughing up green mucus and not being able to sleep going out of my mind. My agent was nice enough to allow me to stay in their RV camper to rest and recover. While I was there trying to rest, the fever still raged on and I wasn’t getting any better. I couldn’t sleep as every time I laid down, I would start wheezing again and would have to sit up. I asked for a pulse oximeter as my feet were going numb and I needed to sleep all the time. I checked my oxygen and when I first did, it was 77! The normal ranges for blood oxygen levels are supposed to be 95 on the low end and 99/100 on the high end. I called 911 and by the time I finished giving my location, they were knocking on the door and the EMS team came in to take me way on a gurney with oxygen up my nose.

24hrs later the doctor comes into the room and says, “Hi! How are you!”with an overly fake cheerful tone. It was completely insensitive to everything that I had gone through up to that point.

“Well, let’s see…have a hard time breathing, been coughing all night, barely slept last night, have a fever..that’s how I’m doing and that’s why I’m here doc.” I say with oxygen tubes still in my nose. I was hoping he was able to give me some magical treatment care plan that would help me but the actual answer I got from him was, “Great, it seems like you should be fine and ready to be released this afternoon.” My heart sank. Here I am at one of the lowest moments in my life and now I have to sit here and argue with the doctor. Nice..

There was a really long, awkward pause, and I looked the doctor in the eye, and said, “I’m not sure you understand what just happened to me… Did you even read my chart?” He insisted that he did an acted like nothing was wrong. There were two other nurses in the office and both started looking at the doctor their eyes starting back-and-forth between me and him nervously as they probably weren’t expecting their patient to “fight back”.
He insisted that I would be fine and I insisted that I won’t be going anywhere until I fully recover. It was at that point I fully understood why there are so many elderly people that either die in the hospital or die shortly after they are released from the hospital. Patients, especially the elderly, are often being released too early without having a chance to fully recover.

For the next 3 days and 3 nights, I was in the hospital. It certainly wasn’t fun but was grateful to be able to stay put to get the care that I needed to recover.

3 days later, I’m released but still need rest. I stayed in town for another 2 weeks to recover and ended up shipping my vehicle back home and flying back September 9th.

There’s even more that happened. I can write a book just on this experience alone. Was a crazy time.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Shaun AKA Productions?
Since I am a professional magician, the business is me. I am the product. Since I am my own unique individual with my own personal collection of life experiences and way of being, it is easy to set myself apart from others. Clients hire me because they enjoy me as a person. Being a professional magician has blessed me with many amazing experiences and friendships simply due to my career choice. Usually, I am hired by corporate event and meeting planners. Their main concern is to produce memorable, fun, unique, and interactive experiences…all while having the least stressful event possible.

This is where I come in to play.

Whether it be increasing interaction by breaking the ice during cocktail hour or presenting a fun and interactive keynote onstage, I am able to help ensure that the event attendees first and foremost have fun and move into a more relaxed state of mind. Secondly, I work very hard to ensure that each event is memorable and in turn, makes the event planner look awesome! It truly is a win-win for everyone involved.

Another aspect that sets me apart is my other facets of my career. I am a creative consultant for one of the world’s most respected inventors of magic tricks. Through the magic of 3D design and 3D printing (my other business), I am able to prototype and bring to fruition some of the most creative and stunning magic illusions which are then sold to other magicians across the globe. This puts me in an advantageous position, helping me to think in different and radical new ways. This way of thinking allows me to solve event planner’s problems in ways which they may never have even thought of before. I also use these skills to create new illusions for my own show. In fact, there are several pieces in my show that use props that I designed using CAD software and 3D printed on my personal printers.

Prior to becoming a magician, I was and still am a musician. Being musically inclined allows me to have a natural rhythm with almost everything that I do. This natural rhythm allows me pick up on the rhythm and pace of others and helps me to quickly adapt to situations on the go. For instance, many performers have a scripted show. Although I rely on scripting, I have very little fear of things going wrong due to my ability to quickly adapt and think on my feet, allowing me to improv when necessary and have some amazing byplay with my audience. It adds to the production value of my show as I incorporate hand percussion and freestyle rap into my show along with the other above mentioned skills. The musical skills along with the other above mentioned 3D design and printing allows me to bring very unique experiences to my clients that can’t be found anywhere else.

Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
Mentors are one of life’s best secret shortcuts. It’s always better to be guided by someone who has been in your shoes and has overcome the same obstacles that you are trying to. They’ve already paved the path. They already have the roadmap. They already have years of experience over you, and usually end up saving you from making the same mistakes that they did when they were in your position or your age. I am grateful to have had several mentors appear in my life over the course of my career that have helped point me in the right direction.

The best way to find a mentor is to keep having conversations with people who are better than you at what you want to do and develop relationships with those people. If you end up vibing well, they can in essence become your “mentor”. I have many mentors. Some are my age, some older than me, some younger than me. There’s always something you can learn, regardless of the age of the mentor or person you’re hearing the advice from.

I’ve had a few business mentors. Mentors that have helped shape my show and direct my art. Finally, a mother that was (and still continues to be) very supportive of what I do. She has been one of my best mentors.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://shaunjaymagic.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/shaunjaymagic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shaunjaymagician/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunjaymagic/
• Twitter: https://x.com/shaunjaymagic
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/shaunjaymagic
• Other: https://raleigh3ddesign.com and https://floorplanrendering.com