Magician Andrew Evans likes to use two words in particular — “homegrown” and “hand-built” — to describe his insanely popular, yet still under-the-radar, speakeasy of tricks, The Magic Patio at 3264 Mission St. The show did, in fact, grow out of his home: he began performing on the back deck of his Mission Street apartment in 2014.
The stage, built in his backyard, was orientated so that “ the rest of the building could come up to their balconies and watch the show, like unofficial box seats,” he recalled. That era of The Magic Patio is honored in artwork by Kelly Shmutte that graces the cover of the programs and adorns the entryway of the current location.
Today Evans is selling out three shows a week, often weeks in advance. He recently added a family matinee to the mix. The designer-turned-magician calls The Magic Patio “San Francisco’s best-kept secret.” He’s never spent a cent on advertising and has had little news coverage in the decade-plus of operation, but that hasn’t stopped his success.
“The whole thing almost accidentally took on a life of its own,” he said. “It went from being one weekend a summer to one weekend a month then to every other weekend kind of thing.” For his last season at the original Magic Patio, he sold 1,000 tickets in 60 seconds. He knew he needed a new venue.
Rather than relying on dramatic illusions or elaborate props, Evans incorporates the audience in his magic. One of the most head-scratching tricks comes when he transports a specific dollar bill from an attendee — serial number verified — to the interior of a lemon he cuts open on stage. If the crowd isn’t befuddled enough, he does it a second time: Into the interior of an egg he cracks open to a slackjawed crowd.
When Evans calls people on stage, they aren’t simply the subject of his tricks; instead, they perform magic themselves. After the former designer correctly identifies spontaneous drawings made by members of the audience, down to highly specific details, he then has one of the volunteers guess whose drawing goes with whom. Spoiler alert — they get it right.
Just when you’re thinking Evans has achieved the truly impossible, he does another trick that outdoes the last. Using what appears to be a regular carton of half-and-half, he pours out eight different shots according to requests from the audience. The favorite beverages range from green juice to a margarita, items which the crowd — your humble narrator included — are able to sample after he has poured the eight specific, random drinks from one spout. And in case you thought there was something hidden inside the half and half carton, he rips it apart at the end to prove it’s simply an empty carton.
He found a space two blocks away at 3264 Mission St. in 2017 and set about repurposing it with a team of friends — that’s where the “hand-built” comes in. A former cell phone shop, the storefront was previously a clothing outfitter, selling everything from underwear to suspenders.
After two years of construction and permitting, Evans opened his 50-seat theater in 2019. It’s entirely indoors, but appropriately for a magic show, there are a number of faux touches: rough-hewn wooden floorboards that look like a deck, artificial plants sprouting from cracks in the floor, faux brick walls.
“Part of the appeal of the patio is the whole space and getting to design and build all of this, not just do a magic show,” he said.
Evans performs it all with a team of two — himself and a stage manager who handles light and sound. It’s Evans who lets the audience in, sells $10 bags of Giddy candy and checks tickets in the front lobby lined with magic books (and those cheerful bags of sweets).
Unlike many people who ditch their professional careers for unlikely pursuits, Evans didn’t hate his former day job as a designer at IDEO.
“The work was great. The people were great. I was not looking to leave that,” he said. Evans wasn’t thinking about becoming a full-time magician when he started his backyard shows — he simply wanted to take a hobby to the next level. “Something about magic has always intrigued me from a very young age,” he said.
The designer-turned-magician made his debut at the age of six, he said, to an elementary school audience of 500 students, parents and teachers. His love of magic morphed into a love of theater in college — a background that shines through in his engaging stage presence.
“I didn’t know what to expect, but it was so entertaining,” said San Francisco resident Jenny Bilzard, who attended Friday’s show. “It’s so great to see someone love what they are doing, especially when they are so good at it.”
Evans frames his 75-minute show as a voyage from simplicity to complexity. By the end, Evans has made the argument that the most complex thing you can play with is the human mind. From the faces agog with stunned wonder as each trick seems to defy the last, it’s clear his magic has worked.
“I am in disbelief. I have no words.” said attendee Arthur Wong after Friday’s performance. “My socks are blown off. They’re gone, I can’t find them.” The sense of awe drives the word-of-
mouth business Evans relies upon, as audience members tell their friends to attend.
Magic is having a moment. North Beach’s The Illusionist does brisk business, Jay Alexander’s Magic Theater has had great press after years in business and the popularity of magic as a hobby continues to expand. In an era where everything can be Googled, we crave mystery.
Evans said that mentalism — the art of mind-reading the audience — keeps increasing in popularity, and his magic has evolved over the years to meet that demand. His shows are highly interactive; nearly every audience member can be involved if they want to be. He does a lot of shows for tech-aligned folks who think they’ll be able to figure it all out. They’re stunned when they can’t.
Evans doesn’t cite a household name magician as his biggest influence but rather a magic designer: Jim Steinmeyer. “He’s probably the most important man in magic in the past 50 years,” Evans said. “He invented all the big illusions for David Copperfield, Doug Henning, Lance Burton, Siegfried and Roy.”
“We have this sense that technology can achieve anything, then nothing really feels impossible,” Evans said. “I think it’s pretty beautiful that magic is still this analog art of the impossible.”
