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Quick-change (performance)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ19901606 ↗
Source-derived summary

Quick-change is a performance style where a performer (often, a magician) changes quickly, usually within seconds, from one costume into another.

Notable quick-change artists

19th century

Leopoldo Fregoli

Leopoldo Fregoli (1867–1936) was a quick change performer from the late 19th century. One contemporary review praised the "lightning speed" of his work and called him "the most striking of the Protean men, past, present and future". Fregoli was praised for his vocal range and mastery of European languages.

Fregoli made costume and hairpiece changes just out of view of the audience, in a few seconds. He continued speaking to the audience during these changes. He was reported as owning a collection of 800 costumes and 1200 wigs.

Castor Watt

Castor Watt (1858–1932) was an internationally known quick-change artist from Germany. His special feature was his performance without any aids. The spectacular "quick change" of his costumes happened on an open stage, right in front of the audience.

Editorial summary

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Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1867, 1936, 1200, 1858—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Quick-change, performance and Wikimedia can be independently traced.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19901606. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1867, 1936, 1200 and 1858.

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This entry incorporates text from “Quick-change (performance)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.