The stage is bathed in a fiery red glow. Music sets a mood of tense anticipation. The young, dark-haired magician dressed in black is escorted into an animal cage by his lovely assistant, who wears a henchman’s hood and cloak. The cage is covered and spun. The cover is removed to reveal a roaring leopard. The magician emerges from beneath the henchman’s hood. The audience responds with a standing ovation.
Enter the Terry Evanswood world of illusions, where reality and fantasy embrace. In this world, pages from a newspaper are torn into shreds only to be opened in their original condition. Endless ropes of tied scarves are pulled from the magician’s mouth. Birds fly from popped balloons. And assistants vanish into thin air.
“A professional magician is no more than a child who refuses to grow up. And I refuse to grow up. I still believe the impossible is possible,” said Evanswood, a 23-year-old illusionist from St. Charles.
Performing professionally as a magician and illusionist since the age of 10, Evanswood has delighted audiences at county fairs, Great America in Gurnee, the Norris Cultural Arts Center in St. Charles, New York’s Liberty Island, the Houdini Fest in Wisconsin, “The Bozo Show,” the Magic Castle in Hollywood (a private club for magicians) and in Las Vegas.
The young magician has been presented with a number of awards, including the Certificate of Excellence Award by the American Museum of Magic in Marshall, Mich., and an entertainment scholarship from Pheasant Run Resort to attend the Chavez College of Manual Dexterity and Prestidigitation in Battle Creek, Mich.
Evanswood was also the first magician to be sponsored by renowned magicians David Copperfield and Harry Blackstone Jr. for membership in the Society of American Magicians.
“Terry is one of my favorite magicians,” said Marshall Brodien, who is Wizzo the Wizard on “The Bozo Show” and the manufacturer of the Marshall Brodien magic set. “He is also one of the busiest magicians in Chicagoland. And when you are busy, you are good.”
Tammie Doss, 25, of Elgin, Evanswood’s stage assistant and office manager for the past six years, admired his professionalism the first time she saw him perform. She said she has grown considerably since she started working for him, incorporating her background in dance into his shows and perfecting her management skills.
“Terry is a perfectionist,” she said. “He has made me a better person, bringing out my qualities and skills. And he is open to my creative input.”
Born on June 17, 1970, Evanswood lived in Joliet until his first birthday, when the family packed their bags and established roots in what was then a rural St. Charles. His artistic family, childhood playmates, the open fields and largelots were fertile ground for seeds of imagination.
Evanswood is the youngest of Robert and Helen Hoge’s four children. (Terry and his father chose Evanswood as his stage name because it sounded dignified and also had special meaning for the two of them.)
The whole family is blessed with artistic talent. Robert Hoge, the president of Fox Valley Bank in St. Charles, performs his magic on a number of musical instruments and played the accordion in polka bands and later the electric guitar in rock bands.
Evanswood’s oldest sister, Madonna, is an artist with a specialty in oil painting. His other sister, Christina, was a member of the musical song and dance group Up With People until she married and started her own family. And brother Michael is owner of Pride of the Fox Restorations, a masonry company responsible for the stone work on noted Fox Valley buildings such as the Szechwan Restaurant building on Main Street in St. Charles and the Herrington Hotel in Geneva.
Referred to as Terry and Company by parents, Evanswood was the ringleader of the neighborhood children. The group ventured into the world of make-believe, taking typical childhood games such as army, cowboys and Indians and ghost in the graveyard to the extreme with detailed plots and props.
They played an intricate detective game called James Bond; another game was Annie Oakley, a western played on horseback. They put on magic shows, plays, haunted houses and carnivals with ice cream shops, puppet shows and a roller coaster ride that never worked quite right.
“We had a lot of fun doing things rather than sitting playing Nintendo,” said Melanie Zahner, a neighbor of Evanswood’s since the age of 3 and now a pre-med student at Loyola University.
Laurie Zahner, Melanie’s younger sister, said no one was eliminated from participating in the activities. “We all hung out together, no matter what age,” she said.
Evanswood integrated his individuality into every aspect of his life. Helen Hoge said her son once sold candy door-to-door, carrying it in a box on which he had attached lights. The neighbors couldn’t resist buying from him because of his illuminating sales approach.
Although the interest in entertainment was always there, Evanswood’s curiosity in magic began one Christmans morning with a Marshall Brodien magic kit from his parents.
But unlike most children whose interest melts with the winter snow, Evanswood mastered the tricks and continued to search for more to learn.
“My father would take me to the magic shows at the county fairs,” Evanswood said. “An impressionable child, I would stand there watching the woman turn into the gorilla. I didn’t want to be the one standing there watching. I wanted to be the one creating that magical feeling.”
When he was 8, his parents enrolled him in a class in Dundee with master magician Ralph Beck, who has performed for three U.S. presidents and a number of foreign dignitaries. Beck is also the grand-nephew of Howard Thurston, who performed in the early 1900s and is one of the most-respected illusionists of all time.
“Most of the children would come back to class each week and could not do any of the tricks, but Terry could do every trick very easily. It was obvious even then that he could accomplish any goal he had in mind as far as magic went,” Beck said.
Evanswood continued to take private lessons from Beck after the conclusion of the class, resulting in a lifetime bond of respect and friendship. “Terry has everything. He sings, dances, has a great smile and performs excellent magic. Eventually he will be considered one of the greatest magicians ever,” Beck added.
As Evanswood’s magic improved, his desire for an audience to test his abilities increased. By the age of 10, he was performing magic and clown acts for birthday parties and bar mitzvahs.
Kathy Andrini’s son Tony is Evanswood’s best friend and currently works for him as a stage assistant. The first time she met Evanswood, he was a 6th grader dressed as a clown on roller skates at the grand opening of the St. Charles Mall on Illinois Highway 38 and Randall Road in St. Charles. The young entrepreneur’s job was to coast up and down the mall handing out balloons.
“He always enjoyed the spotlight,” Andrini said.
The magician perfects his tricks and illusions with practice, but some of his work cannot be done alone. Evanswood has used animals in his show since the beginning: rabbits, doves, a boa named Natasha and later a leopard named Luther.
He also would need an assistant from time to time. Melanie Zahner was one of Evanswood’s first to be tapped. He was certain he could make her float as he had seen another magician do.
“He tried over and over again to make me float, but every time I would fall. We did so many weird things,” Zahner said.
In 1985, Evanswood hired his first assistant, Stacey Saltsgaver, who now lives in Hagerstown, Md. Their fathers were business associates, and the two began their friendship back in the days when they rode their bikes together.
“When our familes would get together for dinner, we kids would put on extravagant performances with costumes, scenery and props. By the time we started high school, we were performing for community events, private parties and schools,” Saltsgaver said.
The illusions continuously evolved into more and more sophisticated and elaborate presentations. The team practiced night and day. The more bookings Evanswood received, the more they practiced.
“We lived, ate and breathed magic. We always had a lot of fun, but Terry was very serious about his work. He is a dedicated perfectionist down to every last detail,” Saltsgaver said.
During one performance, Saltsgaver was trapped for a short time in an extremely tight-fitting space when the trick went awry. “I trace my claustrophobia to that time,” she said.
In December 1985, Saltsgaver accompanied Evanswood’s show, Magic by Terry, to the Norris Cultural Arts Center in St. Charles for a full-blown stage presentation that included a leopard. The following year brought the first of 14 engagements on “The Bozo Show.”
“I had grown up watching Ray Rainer, Wizzo, Bozo, Cookie and Captain Kangaroo,” Evanswood said. “It was a little eerie, a little frightening to work with them.
“That first time I saw Wizzo coming out of his trailer in his makeup, all those feelings I had for him as a child came rushing back. I couldn’t help thinking, `Gosh, there’s Wizzo.’ It is very exciting to be accepted by these entertainers as one of them.”
Childhood friend Tom Rebernak Jr. of St. Charles, who spent a great deal of time with Evanswood in grammar school, said he was well-liked in high school but was pretty much of a loner.
“Terry didn’t really fit into one group,” Rebernak said. “He was ahead of his time, already knowing what he wanted to do with his life. He’d be sitting in the lunchroom practicing tricks with a deck of cards.”
Rebernak, who graduated from high school with Evanswood in 1988, said he had seen Evanswood perform a number of times in public and most recently at their high school class reunion, where the magician displayed his sleight-of-hand tricks for a small group of friends.
“He’s really good. I still can’t figure him out,” Rebernak said.
Evanswood made quite an unusual childhood friend, but Rebernak said it is the magician’s personality that has impressed him most.
“He is probably the most genuine person I have ever known,” Rebernak said. “He’s a people person. He was always his own self in high school and still is. Terry is one of the few constants I’ve ever known.”
One of Evanswood’s two long-term goals was to perform at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, a majestic Victorian building whose dark oak-trimmed walls bear portraits of mysterious individuals whose eyes follow guests.
Near the entry, an invisible musician named Irma plays piano requests. This 6,000-member private club for magicians and magic enthusiasts is one of the most significant spots for a magician to entertain.
In 1989 Milt Larsen, the founder of the castle, contacted Evanswood for a magic show in a shopping mall in Sterling, Mich. Larsen was so pleased with Evanswood’s work that he invited him to perform at the Magic Castle.
“I had no idea he was only 19 at the time,” Larsen said. “We have some strict rules because we serve liquor in the restaurants and lounges. I told him he could play here when he was 21.”
On Evanswood’s 21st birthday, he entered the castle to Irma’s rendition of “Happy Birthday” and an audience that sang to the youngest magician ever to perform there. He was hired for three performances a night for seven nights, 21 shows for the 21-year-old. His first show at the Magic Castle was also his 1,000th performance.
“Terry has his own style, a young ’90s style,” Larsen said. “He has a nice quality about him. He’s very innovative.”
The other goal Evanswood had always aimed for was to perform in Las Vegas, which he did last March. Evanswood said no matter what his accomplishment, people continued to ask when he was going to perform in Las Vegas. Performing at the Tropicana in March was what he believed to be the mark of a successful magician.
“It was one of the most exciting moments of my life,” Evanswood said. “Talk about butterflies. When I heard my name announced as the featured entertainer, all the blood ran out of me. The audience began to applaud, and I ran out there and did what I do. It was like performing in my own back yard.”
Once the performance was completed, the reality of the ultimate goal attained sank into a very young and very driven magician.
“That goal had always seemed so far out of reach, and now it was like Dec. 26. The dream of Christmas was all over. I guess I expected fireworks. But there were no fireworks,” Evanswood said.
He came home from Las Vegas and started working on his Halloween project, the Haunted Manor, a non-violent, family-oriented haunted house in the St. Charles Mall. His alternative Halloween activity was an automated, high-tech house of illusions.
“In this world of too much reality, I project the idea that anything is possible, that the endless hallway (in the Haunted Manor) really does go on forever, that I can make the woman float or saw her in half,” Evanswood said.
“As the magician, I hope to create a feeling of suspended disbelief for even a moment, because anything really is possible.”
