I'm playing a magician and mostly finding it not as interesting as playing a singer. Once I've seen her turn her wand into flowers half a dozen times, I've really seen as much as I need to of that particular animation, but she needs to do it a zillion more times in order to advance.
I think it's very weird that Showtime sims can't practice their professions at home before going out into the world. I wanted to practice in privacy and get reasonably good before performing for other sims, but no, the only way for the magician to advance from level 1 to level 2 is to perform for tips.
I was hoping there'd be a magician's props box or something that they could click on to skill at home, just like skilling with any of the ordinary skill objects, but no.
Would you send a sim who'd never played a single chess game before out to compete in a tournament? Of course not. They practice at home for awhile. I don't know why EA set up the Showtime careers this way. I mean, with ghost hunting, you pretty much have to learn on the job -- there aren't ghosts causing problems that you can practice on, otherwise. But singing? Performing low-level magic tricks? You can practice those in your living room.
I do love the fail for the doves trick, though. Raining rubber duckies is pretty darned cute.