This week we say goodbye to Matt Szat, who has been a valuable team member for six years. Matt managed our social media and wrote a lot of the text you read on our site. We recently said goodbye to Jason Silberman as well, who worked on our customer service team.
JOSH: Both Matt and Jason came to Vanishing Inc. via work on my off-Broadway show, Six Impossible Things (you can watch it here). They worked backstage–both in their early twenties–helping at first to assist in the production, and eventually they contributed creatively to the development of the show itself. As you can imagine after two years in close quarters, we all became close friends.
I remember during that period throwing out my back, and the only way to alleviate the pain was enormous, deep-tissue massages, which would allow me to limp through the shows. So for a week in 2019, Matt and Jason took turns standing on my lower back, digging their shoes into my spine as hard as they could. If that isn’t friendship, I don’t know what is.
When the show ended, both of them jumped at the chance to become part of the Vanishing Inc. team. Now they’re both stepping away because their own show schedules have increased and they can no longer split their time. They’ve become sought-after performers in New York, and we couldn’t be prouder of both of them.
ANDI: Josh and I have always believed that our job is not just to offer employment, but to help people build the careers they dream of. Sometimes that dream leads them away from us, and that’s something we not only expect but celebrate. Most of our team (46 of us now) are magicians. That means we understand the pull of the stage, the thrill of an audience, and the need to follow your own spotlight.
We don’t just support that journey, we encourage it. I even wrote the book on Going Pro (a free ebook you can download on our site), and I regularly encourage our team to read it with one simple message: if magic is calling, go answer it. That often means our team members frequently perform gigs in the evenings and weekends, which is amazing because it gives them the insights you need when you are making your own magic purchasing decisions. And with that in mind, Vanishing Inc. was never meant to be a finish line. It’s a launchpad. And watching people like Matt and Jason take off? That’s one of the biggest
joys of what we do.
We both feel enormous affection for the magicians we’ve been fortunate enough to help and mentor along their path. Jason and Matt have made us so proud. It’s bittersweet when team members move on, but we can’t wait to see what they do next.
