I made my debut as an actor/magician’s assistant on Thursday in downtown New Martinsville.

My husband Mike, aka Magician Michael Strough, was part of “The Big Four” magic show at the Parlor Theater at Doolin Center. It’s a show that he and three friends put on every other year.

The reason for that particular schedule is that it happens to coincide with visits one of the magicians makes back to his hometown. Joe Hindman hails from New Martinsville, but today he is a full-time resident of Japan, where he lives with his two sons.

In addition to Mike and Joe, the show included emcee Kerry Blair of Marietta, Ohio, and Bill Stokes, who also owns and operates the theater alongside his wife, Charlene.

Obviously, I have helped Mike with some of his shows in the past. Mostly, I have acted as his “roadie,” helping him to load and unload and set up and tear down his various props.

On occasion, I have been called on to step in as a volunteer or to help a volunteer who is already on stage. That usually only happens when there aren’t enough adults in an audience to allow Mike to do some of the tricks he has planned or when a youngster who jumped at the chance to help struggles to open or close a bag or to understand and follow directions.

However, Thursday was the first time that my participation in a magic show was actually planned. I don’t want to give away too many details, because if we repeat that performance, it might ruin the effect for any readers who happen to be there.

What can say is that I had a specific role to play, complete with a costume to make it more realistic.

Apparently I was pretty successful at pulling my part off. A few people in the know, including the other magicians and their family members, applauded my performance and told me how their children had been fooled.

Charlene, who has been a magician’s wife for longer than I have, offered a word of caution: “You know what happens when you do a good job, right?”

Apparently, she believes my reward will be more work to perform.

After the show ended, Mike had several people approach him, asking questions about how we pulled it off. It seems even several adults were stumped.

It was just a very small role, but it turned out to be fun and fairly easy to do. We didn’t actually rehearse — instead, we just talked through the gist of what I was going to do, arranged for me to have the right outfit on and then we went for it.

I guess we will just have to wait and see if my magic career takes off from here.