[19] Teller began performing with his friend Weir Chrisemer as The Othmar Schoeck Memorial Society for the Preservation of Unusual and Disgusting Music.

He met Penn Jillette in 1974, and, with Chrisemer, they became a three-person act called Asparagus Valley Cultural Society, which started at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival and subsequently played in San Francisco.

[21] Teller's trademark silence originated during his youth, when he earned a living performing magic at college fraternity parties.

[22] He found that if he maintained silence throughout his act, spectators refrained from throwing beer and heckling him and paid more attention to his performance.

The book features his father's paintings and 100 unpublished cartoons which were strongly influenced by George Lichty's Grin and Bear It.

[6] Teller is a co-author of the paper "Attention and Awareness in Stage Magic: Turning Tricks into Research", published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience (November 2008).

[24] In 2010, Teller wrote Play Dead,[25] a "throwback to the spook shows of the 1930s and '40s" that ran September 12–24 in Las Vegas before opening Off Broadway in New York.

[26] In 2008, Teller and Aaron Posner co-directed a version of Macbeth which incorporated stage magic techniques in the scenes with the Three Witches.

[29] In 2022, the Round House Theater staged Teller and Posner's adaptation of The Tempest and made a video recording of it temporarily available for purchase, to stream.