When one thinks of magic, many things come to mind: Ringling Brothers, card tricks and bunnies being pulled out of top hats, just to name a few. Many people don’t stop to think about the art and performance aspect that goes into building a great magic show. For Salem resident and magician Evan Northrup, magic is not just about playing tricks on viewer’s eyes. To him, magic is about submerging the audience in a theatrical performance that amazes the mind.
Northrup performing one of his street shows.
Northrup is not your average Brown University graduate. At age 22, he has already traveled to numerous countries and is fluent in English, Spanish, Italian and Greek. In his travels he has met extraordinary people who have influenced his life and have molded him to be the person he is today. But if you were to ask Northrup about his journeys, he would not say that it is his passion for learning about different locations and cultures that sets him apart from the norm. What makes him unique is that magic has been the underlining factor for all of his adventures since he was eight years old.
Growing up in Salem, Northrup was surrounded by witches and magic at an early age. A Magic Parlor located down the street, a father who enjoyed showing him tricks that he could never figure out and books his older brother gave him led Evan to a fascination of the world of magic.
“It has always been something that I liked to do and loved reading about,” says Northrup. “Then my sophomore year of high school I started street performing here during the summer and the fall. Which was so much fun but an absolute failure. I was probably the worst street performer you would ever meet.”
Even though the beginning was everything but easy, Evan stuck with the gig for four more years. Then in his junior year at Brown he studied abroad in Madrid, Spain where he found his niche. He met numerous street performers, who he not only traveled through Europe with, but who taught him unique tricks and techniques of street performing. And with his five-month long program coming to an end, Northrup wasn’t ready to end his time in Spain. He took his Visa, which was valid for one more month, bought a plane ticket to Barcelona and traveled through the city performing.
“It was so much fun and I actually learned how to perform then, so I have been addicted to the street performing ever since because I can finally do it.”
After returning to the states, Northrup did not limit himself solely to street performances. Since graduating school he has done everything from theater and street shows, sport arenas for teams such as the Celtics and Bruins and hotel brunches. Recently returning from Vegas, Northrup spent time learning from Jeff McBride, a renounced performer in the magic scene who runs the McBride’s Magic and Mystery School.
“He is the one of the few people in magic today that really understands performance theory and how you can’t just present a series of tricks but you have to treat it almost like theater.”
Through lectures, guest speakers and shows Northrup learned skills that he hopes will take his performances to the next level, all while learning more about the appreciation and art of magic.
Now the question Northrup has to answer is where he sees himself down the road. He spends 11 months out of the year performing gigs in different arenas and saves October for his beloved hometown street performing. Being immersed in a town that is known for magic, Northrup gets a chance to amaze tourists and locals but also allows himself time to prepare for the next year.
“There is a great, beautiful, amazing magic show in New York that is really an inspiration to me called Chamber Magic. It is run by a psychologist/magician named Steve Cohan. He’s developed a modern take on classic nineteenth century parlor magic show, back when high-class people would invite friends over and bring in a magician to perform in their living room. And he is doing classic effects that have not been seen in over a hundred years, but re-interpreting them to fit the setting of the Waldorf-Astoria.”
One of the three card tricks Northrup amazed us with. Stacking two decks without looking and having all of the cards in each deck be the same color.
Being involved in this type of show, where performers dress up in business attire and the shows are geared towards audiences smaller than 50, is a calling to Northrup. He sees himself wanting to interact with people in the crowd all while being in a theater atmosphere where he has to take his magic vertical. He noted that it is hard to perform magic on a table in front of a larger audience. For the time being he is working on building a set show and developing a clientele, but he knows that whatever he does, he wants to be doing magic.
“I don’t want to do anything else. I have worked in restaurants, I have done small jobs here and there and I never last very long because it’s not challenging at all. That is the thing I like about magic, a lot of things come really easily to me and I pick things up very quickly, but with magic I still screw up a lot. So it is a constant fight to learn more about it.”
*After the interview Evan performed a few card tricks that boggled the mind, and when asked to share his secret he politely replied that once you give yourself to magic you sign an imaginary vow that you will never tell your secrets.