On the second Tuesday of each month, the back room at Sisyphus Brewing becomes a magical place.
That’s when the Magic Underground takes over the Minneapolis brewery, inviting performers to try their hand at new tricks. This is the magicians’ open mic, a monthly show dreamt up by Magic Underground co-creators Chris Leuck and Noah Sonie.
Leuck and Sonie have been friends since middle school, and their love of magic was sparked at the same time—after they saw metalcore band We Came As Romans play in the Bloomington IKEA parking lot, then wandered into a magic shop at the Mall of America.
“We’d go back to the mall every weekend, that whole year,” Leuck says.
“There was for sure a dossier on us, like, ‘OK, these kids keep coming to this mall—we want to know why,’” Sonie adds.
“And we never bought a single thing at that magic shop. Eventually, the guy that worked there was like, ‘Do you guys just want to learn magic? Because you’re here way too much,’” Leuck laughs.
Years later, Leuck and Sonie are still friends, and they’re still really into magic. Along with partner Mike Davis of design studio Burlesque of North America (who designs all of the Magic Underground's eye-grabbing posters), they have a goal of bringing one-of-a-kind magic shows to unexpected venues.
“Everyone knows that magic exists—you can watch it on YouTube—but it’s hard to find a magic show to go see,” Leuck says. And even if you do go see one, in Vegas, for example, it’s a whole different thing: the gloss, the glamour, the special effects, the trapdoors.
Magic Underground shows have a much more DIY vibe. They take place in a bar (or a comedy club or a THC shop), and unless the cost of a deck of cards shoots up, the production value is a good bit lower.
“We wanted a more in-your-face show,” Leuck says. “We’re really passionate about close-up, smaller stages, comedy-magic that you just really can’t see a lot of around here.”
“There’s this very amazing world that you can get caught up in in the Vegas shows, but I don’t think that feels like you’re experiencing magic; it feels like you’re watching a show,” Sonie agrees. “When it’s a place that you’re not expecting to see a magic show and people start doing incredible things around you, suddenly it changes that context.”
The pair say it took a while to capture that feeling, or even to figure out exactly what they wanted that feeling to be. “But I think we’re getting closer every time,” Sonie says. Since their first show at Comedy Corner Underground in 2019, they’ve invited amateur and professional comedians alike to perform at event spaces throughout the Twin Cities. It’s not just the monthly open mic at Sysiphus; the Magic Underground has hosted close-up magic shows everywhere from Bryant-Lake Bowl to Modist Brewing to Troubadour Wine Bar to the Turf Club, the latter of which hosts their year-end holiday gala.
If your idea of magic is a guy with a wand pulling a rabbit out of a top hat, that’s not so much what you’ll encounter at these shows (though a guy once asked audience members to pull fishhooks out of his mouth). Props might include playing cards, coins, books, and even cellphones, and the magicians skillfully deploy jokes as a means of misdirection. It has the feeling of a standup comedy or improv show, and, fair warning: Even if you hide near the back, there’s a good chance you’ll get called on for some audience participation.
Put it all together, and you get “disorganized chaos… hopefully in a charming way,” Leuck says.
Adds Sonie: “Chris and I both definitely have ADHD, and I think sometimes you can see that in the way the work gets done. But it’s not a bad thing!”
In fact, it’s part of the fun. Watching friends and neighbors get up onstage because they love it is reliably charming, even if they’re doing a new trick that doesn’t quite land. Some perform sleight-of-hand; others prefer mentalism or “mind-reading.” But whether it’s a card trick or a mind trick, the presentation feels fresh depending on the style of the person performing it. You might even find yourself wanting to perform, and that’s an option—just shoot the Magic Underground a DM on Facebook or Instagram, or introduce yourself at a show.
“It’s such a reflection of your existing personality, the kind of magic you end up falling into,” Leuck says.
The Magic Underground
Next show: Natreum Hemp Wellness, 4815 Excelsior Blvd., St. Louis Park. 7 p.m. $17.85; tickets and more info here.
Regularly: Second Tuesday of each month at Sisyphus Brewing, 712 Ontario Ave. W. #100, Minneapolis. 7 p.m. $5; tickets and more info here.
