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Magic show raises funds for Canfield drama club
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Neighbors | Emily Gianetti.Magician Matt Stevens (center), with the help of his assistants, Karlina (left) and Natalina Valley, performed a water drum escape during a magic show in the Canfield High School auditorium. The May 21 show helped raise funds for the drama club.
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Neighbors | Emily Gianetti.Assistants Natalina Valley (left) and Karlina Valley showed how they handcuffed Matt Stevens during a magic trick at Canfield High School. Stevens performed a 90-minute magic show May 21 that helped raise funds for the drama club.
By EMILY GIANETTI
Not many teenagers have their own magic show company. Not many can perform dangerous escapes and magic tricks in front of an auditorium of people but Canfield High School junior Matt Stevens can and does.
Stevens put on a magic show in the high school auditorium May 21 as part of a Canfield Players drama club fundraiser. He performed sleight of hand tricks in the 90-minute show as well as larger and more dangerous illusions with the help of his assistants Natalina and Karlina Valley.
Stevens even made snow appear out of the palm of his hand, a tribute to the grandfather who helped to get him interested in magic. At one point, he was handcuffed and locked in a crate. His assistant stood on top the box, holding a curtain that covered the crate completely. With a dramatic wave of the curtain, suddenly it was Stevens standing on the crate and the assistant was nowhere to be found. Stevens opened the (still locked) crate and there was his assistant, handcuffed in the box.
He finished off the show with something that he said was not an illusion: an escape from a 55-gallon drum of water. Stevens was locked in the metal drum and was given three minutes to get free. At the end of the three minutes, he walked triumphantly back into the auditorium. He had managed to escape and the drum of water was still locked.
“That one really is an escape. I’m really locked inside this barrel of water and I can’t breathe. It is something very difficult to perform,” said Stevens.
It is a trick not to try at home, but Stevens has had plenty of practice over the years. He began doing magic at the age of 5 with the help of a magic kit. Later, a magic store in the Southern Park Mall got him even more interested in developing his magic skills.
Flash forward to junior year, and the illusions have gotten so elaborate that Stevens can “barely fit them in the back of my pickup truck.”
He performs at community theaters and other functions in the Pennsylvania and Ohio. The most rewarding part of the shows for him is simply “being able to do something that is impossible,” he said.
Stevens can be contacted about shows at mattstevens@mattstevensentertainment.com or by phone at 330-727-8900.