Regarding his earlier pre-Piff magician career, asked whether or not it was a comedy act also, van der Put said "Not intentionally. Jobs included restaurant close-up performances for tables of diners cruise ship work and corporate work including "product launches, PR stunts, tradeshows and internal presentations" for global companies. Van der Put credits Fay Presto for enabling him to become a professional magician. Van der Put also had a supporting role in Derek Walcott's 2008 operatic production of Seamus Heaney's The Burial at Thebes at Shakespeare's Globe. The company's Love and Other Magic Tricks, starring Politaki and van der Put and described in a WhatsOnStage review as "a show of subtlety and magic rather than drama and showmanship", won the Time Out Critic's Choice award as well as the 2009 Buxton Festival Fringe's award for Best Production, and was nominated for the Festival's Best New Writing award. With fellow alumni of the CSSD Alexis Terry, Maya Politaki, and Lucy Cullingford, he co-founded the theatrical cabaret company standnotamazed, becoming their artistic director. After two years, a bout of acute pancreatitis caused him to rethink his life goals, and he quit IT to learn performance methods as a drama student at the Central School of Speech and Drama. His parents persuaded him to have a back-up career, so he completed a Computer Science degree, and began a career in IT. At the age of 18, he became a member of The Magic Circle, and was one of the youngest members to have lectured there. As a teenager, he was inspired to become a magician after seeing Jerry Sadowitz on the BBC2 show Stuff the White Rabbit. Van der Put grew up in South East London. Van der Put lives in Las Vegas and has a residency at The Flamingo. In June 2019, van der Put was named one of Variety's 10 Comics to Watch for 2019. A winner of multiple awards from British magic societies, he toured as a supporting act for Mumford and Sons and has appeared on Penn & Teller: Fool Us and America's Got Talent. John van der Put (born 9 June 1980) is a magician and comedian from the United Kingdom who performs under the stage name Piff the Magic Dragon.
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