The first time I went to The Magic Castle in Hollywood was 24 years ago, in the spring of 2001. It was right after having had a rather tough 6-month engagement at Silja cruise line, and I felt somewhat flat, and felt that I needed a vitamin shot of creativity, so I wrote to my friend Max Maven and asked if I could come over and visit for a few days. 
Max replied that I, of course, was welcome to visit, but if I was going to be in Hollywood, I might as well perform a week at The Magic Castle – Max happened to be their current artist booker at the time, hence the suggestion.
Said and done, my first ever trip to the US was to The Magic Castle and once there I did 27 shows in “The Close-up Gallery”, one of the smaller stages at the Magic Castle, which due to the intimate proximity to the audience lends itself well for fairly advanced sleight-of-hand. I think I made an impression, because I generated quite a bit of buzz in various magic forums and other places. Since then I have been there several times, and have performed on most of their stages. More and more frequently I have brought other Swedish conjurers and magicians with me, partly because it is much more fun then, and partly because I want to show off the high level of Swedish conjuring. In 2003 I was there with Malin Nilsson, in 2016 I was there with Håkan Berg, Axel Adlercreutz, Peter Gröning. In 2018 I was there with Mystique (myself, Martin Hansson, Leif Olberius and John-Henry Larsson). John Houdi, Johan Ståhl, and Nikola Arkane have also been there.
The Magic Castle
The Magic Castle is located half a stone’s throw from Hollywood Boulevard, one street up from The Chinese Theater, and is one of the few venues in the world that is specialized in magic shows, but before we talk about the building itself, we need to talk about the Larsen family.
It all started with William W. Larsen, Sr. (1904-1953) who gave up his career as a criminal lawyer and became a sought-after magician. After marrying Geri Larsen (1906-1998), who since 1939 had, as the first woman ever, her own regular magic show on TV – they together started the international trade magazine Genii, which published its first issue in 1936 and is still going strong. Their two sons, Bill and Milt Larsen, achieved success in the television industry, thus gaining the resources to realize two of their father’s dreams; to start an academy for the promotion of conjuring and to start an exclusive private club where the world’s best magicians could be engaged and perform. Both things happened in 1963.
The building itself is a châteauesque (a kind of Gothic French Renaissance style) residence which was built in 1909. It was bought in 1955 by the businessman Thomas O. Glover, and it was with Glover that the Larsen brothers, via a handshake, made a leasing agreement in 1961. Milt Larsen, with access to all kinds of cult props from dozens of TV and film production companies, immediately started decorating the place. Over the years, the Magic Castle has been expanded, mainly underground, and the private club now has a restaurant, five bars, six stages, and a giant library of magic litterature. The club has many “celebrities” as members, and several of them have also performed there, e.g. Orson Welles, Johnny Carson, Steve Martin, Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Alexander, etc.
The Swedish troupe 2024
Last fall, my partner Nikola Arkane suggested we make another trip to the Magic Castle, bringing some of our talented friends who hadn’t been there yet.
It wasn’t the easiest thing to decide who we should invite, because quite a few of our colleagues end up high on both the list of “innovative artists” and the list of “nice people we gladly spend a week with”.
In the end we decided to invite the Northern genious Arkadia, and our very good friend Gaston (Robert Dahlström) from Gothenburg.
A few days later Johan Ståhl also got in touch and asked if he also could be included, which didn’t take many seconds to agree to, as Johan is both super nice and a Magic Castle veteran.
With all these talented people in the back, Nikola got in touch with Jack Goldfinger, the legendary artist booker at Magic Castle, and only an hour later we got the go-ahead that we were all booked in March.
Johan Ståhl got booked for “The Close-up Gallery”, the stage that specializes in sleight-of-hand. Arkadia was booked into “The Parlor of Prestidigitation”, which presents intimate stand-up magic to an audience of 75 people. While I myself, together with Nikola and Gaston, took care of “The Palace of Mystery”, Magic Castle’s biggest stage with approx. 150 people in the audience.
Preparation
The show at the Palace of Mystery usually consist of three completely different acts that run one after the other, with one of the performers taking on the role of emcee. However, we wanted a more elaborate format, with more interaction between the artists. A slightly more artistic touch… but that kind of thing requires rehearsals, and it wasn’t the easiest considering that I live in Stockholm, Gaston in Gothenburg, and Nikola in Belfast. Fortunately, I live within walking distance of the cultural hub Subtopia, where I could rent a rehearsal room for 2 days for a liberatingly reasonable rate. Since we all have experience with fast productions, and speak the same “language”, we were able to create a pretty good show during these two days.
The show
We managed to film one of our 30 performances, and you can watch it here (37 min):
A visit to John Gaughan
One of the days we made a trip to the famous illusion and prop maker John Gaughan’s workshop. He has built the greatest illusions for the most famous names in the industry. He also has one of the world’s largest collections of antique magic props, and we spent several hours listening to all his stories.
Epilogue
And all of a sudden the week was over. After between 3 and 7 performances per day, we were all exhausted, but still very satisfied.
Over the course of the week, we received a huge amount of gushing compliments from Magic Castle regulars, and it looks like we’ll be invited back soon. It really was a very fun week!
