from roanoke.com - February 5, 2004

By Lindsey Wray
|lindsey.wray@roanoke.com
777-3521

Nelson Oliver spent a few hours tied up in a closet several years ago.

He hadn't been kidnapped, and he wasn't being held hostage — he was just attempting a new magic trick. Once he realized he couldn't untie the ropes around him, he had to wait for his mother to get home from work and free him.

Now 19, the Blue Ridge resident has had time to perfect his tricks and illusions, but his passion for magic remains intact.

At age 7, Oliver watched a magician in a restaurant pour sugar into his hand and make it disappear.

Oliver was hooked.

His parents gave him a magic set when he was 8, and unlike the often short-lived hobbies of children, Oliver's interest in magic stuck.

A 2003 graduate of Lord Botetourt High School, Oliver thinks about magic every day. He taught himself most of what he knows about magic; he fills notebooks with ideas and tries tricks whenever he gets a chance. His basement is full of magic equipment, including a smoke machine, wireless microphones and an arm guillotine. The license plate of his car even reads "HOUDINY" for magician Harry Houdini.

For Oliver, magic is about a lot more than waving a wand and making things vanish.

"After a while magic has more of a meaning," he said.

Though he does some traditional magic tricks with cards and coins, Oliver, who regularly performs at Mill Mountain Theatre's No Shame Theatre, emphasized that magic is as much about evoking emotions and telling a story as it is about the illusion itself.

"I don't just pull rabbits out of hats," he said, adding that he prefers to call his magic tricks illusions, miracles or effects.

Magic duo Penn and Teller are probably Oliver's favorite modern magicians because their magic helped him learn how to perform illusion with significance.

"They opened my eyes to the fact that magic's not always a simple card trick; it should have meaning behind it," he said.

Oliver said he aims for the beauty behind the mystery. He does an illusion, for instance, called "Snowflake" that's based on a true story about his sister, who died of cancer at age 22. Oliver was 10 years old at the time.

Instead of merely doing the effect, Oliver said, he carefully narrates the story as he goes along.

"It's my poetry," he said. "It's a way of expressing myself."

Oliver's illusions have changed quite a bit from when he first began to do magic.

"I was a very disorganized amateur magician," he said. "I didn't practice much and just thought I knew how to do it."

In elementary school, people began calling Oliver "Magic Man" or "Mr. Magic." Later in high school, his nickname changed to "Jack" because he did so many card tricks. Oliver used to practice tricks at school, such as holding a coin in the open palm of his hand all day. He tried new effects on his friends, too.

"He's always doing magic," said f=Body Type-BoldMike Zarcenskyo, a friend of Oliver's who has known him since the third grade.

Zarcensky, an 18-year-old Blue Ridge resident, said it's been interesting to watch his friend try out tricks. But Oliver never reveals his secrets, Zarcensky said.

"Over the years he's always been good with it," Zarcensky said.

Even though he continually practices, Oliver has had a few mishaps while brushing up on his magic. Besides being tied up in the closet, he's burned his tongue while trying to extinguish matches and has even swallowed needles while trying to tie thread in the back of his mouth.

The minor accidents haven't stopped Oliver from doing magic. He often performs at birthday parties and, last fall, he did a show called "The Fall of Magic" at Factory 324 in downtown Roanoke.

At a Jan. 23 performance at No Shame Theatre, Oliver took rings from the hands of three volunteers in the audience, linked the rings, then separated them — all without damaging them.

"I try to make my effects as real as possible," he said.

Oliver said he also strives for his magic to be memorable, and he'd like it to challenge the way people see the world.

"When you grow up, your rational mind takes over," he said, "but it's my job to stop that for a minute."

Making people smile or forget about their problems are important goals for Oliver when he does magic. Sometimes he stops people on the street and does a trick; he recently entertained a waitress at a restaurant by making her cigarette disappear. He also recalled a performance in a hospital when a boy in a wheelchair perked up for a few minutes while watching Oliver do magic.

"The greatest part is the split second when you see a gleam in someone's eye," he said.

Teetering on the line between faith and disbelief, Oliver enjoys making people question what's real and what's an illusion.

"I love it," said April Saunders, Oliver's girlfriend.

A junior at Lord Botetourt High School, Saunders said she's not embarrassed to be around Oliver when he does magic tricks.

In fact, Saunders, 16, recalled a "sweet and corny" trick Oliver did when they went to dinner before their homecoming dance in 2002.

Instead of giving her a rose, Saunders said, Oliver drew a picture of a rose and produced a real flower only after creating a flame from the piece of paper.

"I think it's awesome," she said of having a magician for a boyfriend. "I brag about him a lot."

Oliver said his favorite tricks are those he's doing at the moment because he's able to see immediate reaction from people.

Oliver, who is rewriting some of his tricks, said eventually he would like to do a show at least once a year, hopefully raising some money for cancer research.

"I really do enjoy being on stage," he said.

Oliver said he'd like to go to college in the next year or two to study drama and psychology.

For now, he runs through tricks in his mind for No Shame Theatre and birthday party performances while working the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift as a security guard in Bedford.

In his spare time, he's working with something he'd like to eventually use in his tricks — a pair of doves that his friends gave him for Christmas.

Named Alfred and Hitchcock, Oliver is training the blue-winged birds (blue, courtesy of Kool-Aid) to return to his arm so they can be part of his magic acts.

"I see a good future for him," said Mark Fuller, owner of the Magic Connection at Towers Shopping Center, where Oliver works one or two days a week.

Fuller said he remembers when Oliver used to come to the store to take Fuller's magic classes. Oliver, he said, was one of the few students who did the work he assigned outside of class and actually put time into his final presentation.

Though Fuller hasn't seen him perform outside of the shop, he's heard about Oliver's tricks and likes that he comes up with his own effects instead of simply copying other magicians.

"He's very creative with it," Fuller said, adding that Oliver incorporates his own personality into his magic.

Oliver said he wants to see where magic will take him. He'd like to get a van and travel around showing people his illusions and sharing with them his idea of magic.

"It's the miracle," he said. "It's the thing that happens when you don't expect it."

Nelson Oliver will perform at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at The Best of No Shame Theatre at Mill Mountain Theatre's Waldron Stage, 20 E. Church Ave. in downtown Roanoke. For tickets, call the box office at 342-5740.