Chelmsford Resident To Perform On Penn & Teller: Fool Us

CHELMSFORD, MA — A Chelmsford resident will be on TV in front of the famous magic-comedy duo Penn & Teller Friday to see if she can fool them.

Abby Segal, who graduated from Chelmsford High School in 2019 and is a sophomore at Bates College, has been performing magic and fooling audiences for the better part of the past decade. Now, she's taken her talent to two of the most renowned magicians on national television.

Penn & Teller: Fool Us is a magic competition in which magicians perform tricks in front of American magician-comedian duo on TV.

If a contestant can stump hosts Penn Jillette and Raymond Teller, leaving them unable to explain their trick —which is rare —they win an opportunity to perform at a live show at The Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

Segal filmed her episode Oct. 18, at the near-empty Rio, and then was sworn to secrecy, as part of the agreement for appearing on the show. She can't say how her performance ended, but she will say she had fun.

"They were both very nice and complimentary," Segal said in statement. "They were both talking to me before the show, and they were both on stage with me, that was cool."

The fact that the glitz of Las Vegas was an eerie shadow of itself because of the pandemic, worked to Segal’s advantage, she said. There was little distraction.

Segal got into magic when she was about 11 years old because her sister was hired as a magicians assistant. The magician came over to their house one night to bring her sister some magic tricks to practice, and showed Segal a sponge ball magic trick that instantly fascinated her.

She started looking up tricks online, and eventually took over as the magic assistant, when her sister's interest waned.

"It then took off from there and I started doing my own shows at preschools and birthday parties in 6th grade," Segal said.

It was during the beginning of her senior year at Chelsmford High School in 2018 that she tried out for the show the first time. She didn't make the cut.

"I spent two years creating and working on my trick," she said. "I was pretty upset, but when I first went to [college], I kind of forgot about it."

Then, last summer she heard about another casting call for Fool Us, and couldn't resist giving it another shot.

She filmed herself doing at different trick and submitted it to the producers. It took a while before the producers got back to her, but when they did, they said they would love to have her, with a caveat: that she perform the trick she used to audition when she hadn’t made the cut two years earlier.

She was elated, but had some remembering to do. She set to work to retrain herself on that earlier trick.

"I had to have my mom send all my stuff to me at school," she said.

While magicians perform for them, both Penn and Teller watch closely and jot notes, and use those to decode what's happening in front of them.

During Segal’s segment, Teller sketched a portrait of her, noting she was a "wonder-worker" with her props.

That left an impression, but when a producer delivered the note to her after taping, it left her moved.

“It was awesome,” she said.

Segal who is majoring in psychology with a minor in rhetoric and film studies, said magic will continue to be part of her future: She has put together a "quarantined magic act" and plans to perform some of it at Bates, and into the summer, and you can catch glimpses of it on her Facebook and Instagram pages, @AbbySegalMagic.

How to watch:

To watch Segal in action this week tune in to Episode 21 of Season 7, called "Back to the Future."

Fool Us is scheduled for 9 p.m. Feb. 26, on the CW (Xfinity 808). The episode is available to stream beginning Feb. 27.