Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephen Wood.
Stephen, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I am also a musician – a classically trained tuba player. I go to church at the Salvation Army in Pasadena. Our church brass band went on tour to Estes Park Colorado, and the band decided to eat lunch at an expensive Mexican Restaurant in a strip mall. I didn’t want to spend the money, so I walked into an expensive magic shop next door. The magician behind the counter showed me a trick called Wild Card, and it was an instant visual hook. I bought it, and annoyed everyone in the band with it for the rest of the trip. When I got back home to California, I went to a magic shop in Glendale, bought $750 worth of stuff, studied for 8 months, and started street performing in Old Town Pasadena. The rest is magical history….
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
No – it has not. I’ve been through a lot of things: marriage, divorce, moving across country to get my undergraduate degree, moving back across country, nearly stopping performing for a few years, and then being inspired to start performing again by another street magician that I saw while playing Christmas carols on my tuba in Old Town Pasadena. I’ve been through the death of family, parents, in-laws, uncles, aunts, my older son going to college, and my younger son being born, along with people in and out of my family discouraging me to do what I do.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I am a magician – I entertain with magic – but I entertain as a clean performer. That means that anyone could come to any of my performances and not have to worry about being offended, but still have a good time. I can also plan entire shows that have a message laced through the show – and that’s something that I really enjoy doing. Magic is one of the best mediums to latch a message onto, because people will remember the message through the magic. One of the tricks I’ve become very good at is turning a one dollar bill into a one hundred dollar bill – and I remember going to England a few years ago, and taking a morning to street perform at one of London’s famous spots. I showed the trick to the other magicians waiting for their turn to street perform, and one of them said, “I know what you are doing, but I can’t see it happening.” That was very gratifying praise from one of my peers that the hard work I had put into that particular trick paid off.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I wouldn’t have started in the first place! I joke – but I would have made sure that I had gotten through school quicker, and had the foundation that finishing school gives you. A lot of people might suspect that there are no schools that give degrees in magic, and basically, they’d be right. However, finishing my bachelor’s degree – the process of finishing it – did wonders for me as a person. It gave me an extra bit of confidence.
Contact Info:
- Website: magicandbeyond.com
- Phone: 626 393 6361
- Email: stephenwood@magicandbeyond.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stephenwoodmagician/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/magician-stephen-wood-san-dimas
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