The History of Magic in Chicago

Few American cities have shaped magic the way Chicago has. A young Harry Houdini performed at the 1893 World's Fair. Harry Blackstone was born here. And in the city's saloons and supper clubs, a style of close-up magic grew up that magicians around the world still call “Chicago-style.” Here is how that story unfolded, and where it lives today.

The World's Fair and the golden age of stage magic

In 1893, a 19-year-old Houdini and his brother performed at the World's Columbian Exposition, years before the escapes that made him famous. It was the beginning of a golden age for stage magic, and Chicago sat at the center of the vaudeville circuit that carried the great illusionists from town to town.

The city produced one of them. Harry Blackstone was born Harry Boughton in Chicago in 1885 and became “The Great Blackstone,” touring a full-evening illusion show for decades. His stage name is widely said to come from the Blackstone Hotel on Michigan Avenue.

Chicago's magicians organized early. In 1917, Houdini signed the charter for Chicago Assembly No. 3 of the Society of American Magicians, the society's third local chapter. In 1926, Laurie Ireland opened the Ireland Magic Company at 109 North Dearborn, part of a cluster of magic dealers in the Loop. In 1929, the Chicago Magic Round Table began meeting daily for lunch at De Lazon's restaurant, with members including Blackstone and Dr. Harlan Tarbell, author of the famous Tarbell Course in magic.

Chicago invents bar magic

What makes Chicago different is what happened next, at the bar.

In the 1910s, the Schulien family's restaurant at 1800 North Halsted became one of the first places in America to make close-up magic part of dinner. Matt Schulien, a big man who worked fast with a cigar in his mouth, performed for guests at their tables. His signature was throwing a deck of cards against the wall so that only the spectator's chosen card stuck. During Prohibition, the family ran a speakeasy in the basement. Schulien's moved to 2100 West Irving Park Road in 1948 and stayed a gathering place for magicians until it closed in January 1999.

Around the same time, Johnny Paul, a bartender at the LaSalle Hotel, began performing magic for customers from behind the bar, and later opened Johnny Paul's Magic Lounge in Cicero. The idea spread. By the 1960s, the Chicago area had more than a dozen magic bars, among them the New York Lounge on Lincoln Avenue, Little Bit O' Magic on the South Side, Ryan's Magic Tap, Mr. C's Magic Lounge in Berwyn, Houdini's Pub in Oak Forest, and Frank Everhart's bar at the Ivanhoe. At the New York Lounge, which ran from 1945 to 1985, magicians like Al James and “Heba Haba” Al Andrucci worked shifts that ran from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. Downtown, Bert Allerton performed close-up magic for the celebrities in the Pump Room.

That is the heart of Chicago-style magic: sleight of hand performed up close, with plenty of humor, for people out for a drink or dinner. It is magic built to entertain a crowd, not to impress other magicians, and it shaped close-up magic everywhere.

The thinkers, the shop and the society

Chicago also produced some of magic's deepest thinkers. Ed Marlo, born in Chicago in 1913, worked as a machinist and rarely performed outside the city, yet he published more than sixty books and manuscripts and roughly 2,000 card tricks. He coined the word “cardician,” and magicians still use his sleights today.

The Ireland Magic Company became the heart of the community. After Laurie Ireland's death, his widow Frances married magician and entertainer Jay Marshall in 1954. Together they moved the shop to 5082 North Lincoln Avenue in 1963 and renamed it Magic, Inc. Frances also founded the Magigals, an organization for women in magic. The shop moved to 1838 West Lawrence Avenue in 2016 and is still run by the Marshall family, making it one of the oldest family-run magic shops in North America.

In the 1970s, Chicago became home to “bizarre magic,” a darker, story-driven style that drew on séances and the occult. Tony Andruzzi and Eugene Burger led the way. Burger, born in Chicago in 1939, held a divinity degree from Yale and became one of the most influential teachers and philosophers of close-up magic of his generation.

Magic on Chicago television

For a generation of Chicago kids, magic meant Marshall Brodien. He started out at 16 at Riverview Park, then spent more than 25 years as Wizzo the Wizard on WGN's Bozo's Circus, from 1968 to 1994. His TV Magic Cards, sold through television ads beginning in 1970, sold more than 17 million decks. On the West Side, Walter King Jr., “the Spellbinder,” built a following in the 1980s with stage illusions performed at South Side clubs.

The quiet years and the revival

By the late 1980s most of the magic bars had closed, and when Schulien's closed in 1999, an era ended. But Chicago's appetite for magic never went away.

At the House Theatre of Chicago, which he helped found, third-generation magician Dennis Watkins originated the role of Houdini in Death and Harry Houdini. Across eight runs, the show recreated Houdini's escapes onstage, including the Water Torture Cell, and earned Watkins a Joseph Jefferson Award. In 2009, he opened The Magic Parlour, an intimate evening of close-up magic and mind reading, at the Chopin Theatre. The show moved to the Palmer House in 2011 for a twelve-year run, and in October 2023 to its own speakeasy theater at 50 West Randolph, presented with Goodman Theatre and Petterino's. It is now Chicago's longest-running magic show.

A new generation of venues followed. The Chicago Magic Lounge began in 2015 as a weekly show and opened its own theater in Andersonville in February 2018, where it also revived the Chicago Magic Round Table. Aaron Rabkin opened Trickery, a storefront theater in Lakeview, in 2017. Dr. Ricardo Rosenkranz took over the Rhapsody Theater in Rogers Park in 2021 and filled its season with magic. And in April 2026, The Hand & The Eye opened in the historic McCormick Mansion off the Magnificent Mile as the world's largest magic venue.

More than a century after Houdini played the World's Fair, Chicago is again one of the best cities in the world to see magic.

See magic in Chicago today

Want to see it for yourself? Our guide to Chicago magic shows covers The Magic Parlour and the city's other magic venues. Planning an event? Tell us about it, and we'll match you with a Chicago magician in the tradition of the greats.

Sources: Chicago Reader, “A brief, wondrous history of Chicago magic” · WBEZ Curious City, “The history of Chicago-style magic” (2024) · Newcity Stage, “Chicago's New Golden Age of Magic” (2025) · Genii Magicpedia, “Schulien's” · Chicago Magic Lounge, “The Story” and “History of the Chicago Magic Round Table” · Wikipedia entries for Harry Houdini, Harry Blackstone Sr., Magic, Inc., Ed Marlo, Eugene Burger, Marshall Brodien and Dennis Watkins · Axios Chicago on The Hand & The Eye (2026).