Homegrown magician wins Alaska’s Got Talent

Homegrown magician Neil Fama, also known as the “Island Showman,” took home first place in Alaska’s Got Talent competition last Sept. 4 during their state fair in Palmer Alaska.

Fama, who is currently living in Alaska and serving in the U.S. Air Force, shared with Saipan Tribune that he joined a local talent competition in Fairbanks not realizing it had been a preliminary round, in which the winners would compete in Alaska’s Got Talent.

“I was just like grabbing on every opportunity to perform. Not necessarily wanting to win it’s just for me to perform. I’ll perform just because I love entertaining people.”

He shared that he had been doing magic among friends from work and after the word spread, he began performing for work events, from there his friends encouraged him to try out at the local talent show.

“My coworkers were like ‘hey there is a local talent show’ and the date was like a week away…” he shared “…I just saw it as an opportunity to perform again so I just signed up and miraculously I ended up winning that. What I didn’t know is that it will bring me to Alaska’s Got Talent which was in Palmer…they just announced it after the competition… so yeah that was a really cool experience.”

After winning the Fairbanks Got Talent which was a preliminary round, he ended up moving on to the Alaska’s Got Talent in Palmer, Alaska.

He said there was definitely a lot of talent there which did cause a sprinkling of doubt, but he felt confident on his skill, and just got up to perform.

“I feel like what I bring is my personality on stage because a lot of tricks I do, you could say a lot of other magicians already know how to do… but what you can’t really copy is one’s uniqueness.” He shared that he had learned a lot from illusionist Leon Etienne known for his appearances on Master of Illusion, America’s Got Talent, and Penn and Teller: Fool us, and the Jimmy Fallon show.

Etienne had been Fama’s personal mentor around the time that Etienne performed on Saipan in previous years’ Sandcastle events at the Hyatt Regency Saipan.

“I learned a lot from him back when we were both on Saipan. He actually mentored me for my first year in magic… he actually helped me build my routine for the first CNMI’s Got Talent that I joined in 2017. How to compete, how to perform for judges, how to win the crowd.”

At the end of the day Fama did win the Alaska’s Got Talent crowd and first place title along with $2,500 cash.

Fama shared that he really wanted to thank the CNMI because it was here that his love for magic grew. Fama shared that as a child his father worked as a teppanyaki chef in several hotels and to collect tips he’d do other performances while cooking, one of which were magic tricks.

He then showed those tricks to a young Fama.

Fama shared that as a kid he would go to school and show his friends the tricks he just learned.

“It was just a fun thing for me like even though I knew it wasn’t real magic, like most kids would think, just the wonder of that… showing something to someone and having that person think it was magic, was pretty magical to me.”

Fama also loved learning new things and when he was 18 years old during a trip to K-Mart in Guam he’s eyes were transfixed on a bicycle deck of cards.

“I had this impulsive decision like ‘oh I should get into magic.’ So, I just took that one deck of cards home and just started scouring the internet like searching for the best magic tricks.”

His first trick was a David Bling routine.

“I just kept focusing on learning that one trick. I wasn’t learning a hundred tricks. I wasn’t learning more than one…just one trick and I brought that home to Saipan and started performing that for my coworkers.”

Their reaction had “just sent it home for me. Their reaction sold it to me that what I was doing was truly special. Not just their reaction…but my coworkers I give so much credit to them…”

He went on to perform in CNMI’s Got Talent in 2017 where he won first place as well as took home the Governor’s Choice Award. Later in CNMI’s Got Talent in 2021, he again won first place alongside Donato Santiago Jr.

“I just want to thank whoever I performed for personally in my early days, because they told me, ‘this what you’re doing right now is crazy, and special. Don’t quit, don’t quit this, keep doing this’ and that was just like my first months of doing magic. I was like ‘dang’ and what they said stuck with me and I just never stopped.”

Fama’s recent win in Alaska’s Got Talent really solidified that.