Presto Chango! Magic Is Back

Earlier this year, the week that magicians Penn and Teller wrapped production on the 11th season of their TV show Fool Us, I found myself engaged in a Zoom conversation with Penn Jillette, the verbal half of the series’ famously quirky hosting team. I told him several magicians had said to me that mentalism is currently the hottest thing in their line of work.

Although he’d just emphasized the importance of collegial kindness, Jillette now looked at me as if he’d accidentally ingested a deck of playing cards. “It’s the easiest magic to do if you are immoral,” he said. I followed with a question about Kreskin, who has been performing his mentalism routine around the country for decades. His instant rejoinder: “A scumbag. One of the worst people who ever lived.”

And so there you have it. Magic is not a safe space for the timid. It’s hyper-competitive and can be ugly if you’re unprepared to defend the integrity of your act. A journeyman can earn a decent living, Jillette told me, but few will achieve stardom. However, they’ll almost certainly book plenty of gigs because, in theaters, in parlors, on screens, even on cruise ships and Broadway, magic in all its permutations is huge. Indeed, virtuoso magicians — or “illusionists,” who are basically magicians who work on grander stages — have proved to be an audience favorite on America’s Got Talent, the NBC megahit that heavily favors gasp-inducing acts. (Again, Jillette: “I don’t believe their judges have any kind of expertise I’m interested in.”)

These days, Las Vegas is to magic what Jerusalem is to the world’s monotheistic religions. The town is lousy with practitioners. One of them is Seth Grabel, who appeared on AGT a while back and has been doing comedy magic ever since. (“I quickly went from $500 to $5,000 a show,” he said of his TV exposure.) He agrees with Jillette: If you’ve got a halfway decent act, you can find work. Lots of younger magicians are taking their shot, hoping to one day be the next David Copperfield. It’s a reasonable gamble, he said.

Fact is, in Vegas or elsewhere, “You can make $100,000 a year doing magic as a side hustle.” So I was told by Adam Christing, a North Carolina-based magician and emcee who has been on the road for 40 years, entertaining mostly at corporate gatherings. “I get to see CEOs become kids again,” Christing said, noting that magic “seems even more popular now than in its heyday in the ’20s and ’30s.”

His observation was confirmed as accurate by Christopher Hart, chairman of the board of trustees of the Academy of Magical Arts. He volunteered that it was magicians Siegfried and Roy, with their magnificent white tigers, who “really transformed Vegas.” Today, in the wake of the pair’s impact, “magic has seen a shift in its demographics,” Hart said. “There are far more women, African-Americans, and Asians playing all the major venues.”

And yet despite its ubiquity, some folks remain stubbornly unsmitten. As an example: I received a text on this topic from Judith Newman, the prolific magazine writer and author (most recently of To Siri with Love). “I hate magic. Because it’s not magic. It’s some sort of technical skill that someone has learned to fool the eye,” she said in her message. “I don’t want to be amazed and delighted. I just want to know how the [expletive] it’s done.”

Well, okay then. Mr. Jillette, your move.

In the September/October 2024 issue, Cable Neuhaus wrote about the adventure of secondhand shopping.

This article is featured in the November/December 2024 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.