DAVID BLAINE'S GREATEST TEACHER? RICKY JAY

Ricky Jay's new show "Rogue's Gallery" opens at the Somerville Theatre tonight and Boston.com has published a profile of the magician to promote it. "The show marks a number of firsts for Jay - among them, serious audience participation and the introduction of materials from his personal collections (show bills of singing mice; posters of Houdini imitators; images of Jay's grandfather, an amateur magician who introduced Jay to the craft). The way audience members interact with those materials will determine the direction of the performance.No tricks have been recycled for "A Rogue's Gallery," which is largely improvised, and four decades into a career, that's no small feat." David Blaine is quoted in the piece and refers to Jay as his greatest teacher. "As a youngster I saved up all my money for a ticket to see 'Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants,' says Blaine. "It gave me a very serious, entirely different respect for magic. I can't think of anybody else alive or historically that was so impactful on so many levels. He really did inspire most of my take on magic. "