With all the color, joy and spirit of acceptance, diversity, humanity and community in the air, PrideFest can feel like magic. That's particularly the case for this year's edition, however, as the 2023 festival – which began last night and runs through Saturday on the Summerfest grounds – will summon some actual magic all the way from Las Vegas courtesy of Murray SawChuck, aka Murray the Magician. 

Hitting the SKYYLine Main Stage at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 3, SawChuck's brand of comedy magic has been all over stage and screen – from making it as a semifinalist on "America's Got Talent" in 2010 to becoming the resident magic historian on the smash hit History Channel reality show "Pawn Stars" and entertainingly entrancing fans in person with Vegas shows at the Tropicana Laugh Factory and appearances at the Luxor. And now he'll bring his maniacally mesmerizing ways to Milwaukee for PrideFest and the beginning of the summer festival season. 

Before he mystifies Milwaukee's PrideFest on Saturday, I chatted with SawChuck about magic history, how exactly one becomes the resident magic historian on "Pawn Stars" and bringing some Viva Las Vegas razzle to Milwaukee PrideFest's dazzle. 

OnMilwaukee: What got you interested in magic?

Murray SawChuck: Anything to avoid school. (laughs) I grew up in Vancouver, Canada – I’ve been in the states now about 35 years or so – and I grew up watching all sorts of different entertainers. At the age of 5, I started as a professional dancer; I trained ballet and breakdancing and all that stuff. I also played the accordion – and then I quit because nobody likes the accordion. 

Well, if you want to bust it out again, Milwaukee does love a good polka. 

Well there we go! (laughs) Maybe it’s my rebirth of the accordion. Maybe I’ll bedazzle my accordion and get it going again.

So I did that, and I loved being on stage and all that stuff; I’d already had that attention a little bit since the age of 5. Around 7 or 8, I got a magic kit like any kid would get as a toy, and it stuck. I put it away for a bit, but then around 12 or 13, I got another one. And because I’d been in front of the audience performing music and dancing, I had that kind of knack or figured out that little bit of an it factor. And then magic kind of stuck! I saw David Copperfield vanish the Statue of Liberty when I was 7 or 8, and I thought that was pretty cool. I knew it wasn’t a power that he had; it was a skill. 

So I started doing birthday parties and kids’ parties once I learned a few tricks, and I’d go on the weekends and put little ads on the rec center’s walls where you could rip off the phone number and pay $50 for a half-hour birthday show. And that’s how I started.

What does it mean to come to Harry Houdini’s stomping grounds?

I think it’s pretty cool! I study a lot about him and also on “Pawn Stars” – I’ve been on there for about the last 19 seasons – we bring a few things from Houdini on there. I love going back to the roots of where certain people started that are legendary. People forget that he came from Wisconsin – such a legend. 

The greatest thing about Houdini that a lot of people don’t really know is that he was not only just a great escape artist but he really was, top of all, the best publicist in the business. He knew how to take a pile of sawdust and consider it a mansion. Whatever he sold or whatever he was doing, he really knew how to get that attention.

How does one become the resident magic historian on “Pawn Stars”?

What are the chances?! In 2010, I came off “America’s Got Talent” as a semifinalist and did really well. At that point, the show was being seen by about 22 million people, which was a lot of people. And “Pawn Stars” had just started airing around 2009 or something around there, and all of a sudden, they started touring live.

A buddy of mine here in town was promoting the tour and said, “Hey Murray, you’d be a great host for this. They need somebody to run the show; they know what to do but they need somebody to run the interviews and talk to people. And since you’d just come off 'America’s Got Talent,' I want you on the road with them; you’ve got a weird look and a thing for reality TV." So I said let’s do that. 

So we met at an office and Rick (Harrison) was like: If you think you can do it, why not? We need somebody. You kind of look weird; you don’t look like us. You don’t have tattoos and your hair’s kinda weird, but it might just work.

So we went for it and toured for about two or three years with live shows, and then he said I should come on the show. I said I’d love to, and he said why don’t you come sell something. My manager at the time was like, “I don’t think we should really sell something; it might look like you need the money. Why don’t we try to make you an expert of some sort?”

And Rick said let’s have you come on as a magic expert and bring some Houdini stuff on, or Harry Blackstone or Harry Kellar or any of these huge magicians, because that’s legendary. And that’s kind of how it started, and now I’ve done almost 50 episodes at this point.

Do you have a favorite underappreciated magician, either from the past or working now, that did or is doing something special?

A magician that was famous in the past – not famous in the sense like Houdini or Blackstone – there’s a guy named Cardini. He was a very famous magician in the 1930s, '40s and '50s. He came on stage very well-dressed in a black tuxedo with an eye monocle, and he had an assistant named Swan who looked like a hotel bellhop.

So every time he walked on stage, it looked like he walked into the main foyer of the Plaza Hotel; his assistant would be the bellhop, and as he was waiting in the lobby, the act would happen. And the greatest thing about his act is that he wouldn’t know what was happening – which is really hard when you know what’s happening, because obviously you’re the one controlling everything. It’s almost like a ventriloquist talking to himself. 

So he’d take a cigarette pack out, take a cigarette out of the case, and as he got the cigarette to his mouth, it was gone. And he’d look at his hand, take another one out of the package, put it back by his mouth and it was gone again. They’d keep disappearing until there was only one left, and then he’d get the cigarette to his mouth, go to light it and there’s no match.

He’d reach down to his shoe to light a match and light his cigarette, and as he lit the cigarette, he’d be looking to the left and as he turned to the right, his hands would have a fan of cards in them that he’d bump into. So his whole act was very much he was amazed and mystified at the same time as the audience. A very, very cool misdirection type of act – a very famous act for its time.

What would you say is the state of magic right now? 

I think there’s a really big uprise in magic and comedy right now. Remember in the ‘80s, when the comedy clubs boomed and there were magic specials on TV – not as many as comedy specials because obviously magic’s a little bit more of a niche thing. But right now, I’ve seen a huge rise in magic.

There’s magic lounges all over the place – from the Chicago Magic Lounge to The Loft in Tahoe and of course The Magic Castle in Hollywood – that’s never gone away. The House of Cards in Nashville. All these little boutique cabarets are popping up again, these dinner-type show venues that are reminiscent of the 1930s and '40s – and even the '70s here in Vegas. It’s definitely had a rebirth.

Magic’s still on TV – “Masters of Illusion” just shot our tenth season, or my tenth season on the show, which should be airing either in the fall or early next year. Penn and Teller’s still got “Fool Us” on TV. So it’s definitely a good time to be a magician if you know what you’re doing, you got an image and you got a bit of original shtick.

It’s the same for comedy as well, with so many comedians now popping up because people want to be entertained again. Funny how things kind of go in a big circle, you know?

Yeah, always the ebbs and flows. 

Even though you don’t believe it! You’ll go, “Bellbottoms will never come back – never, ever!” And sure as sh*t, 30 years later, I’m wearing bellbottoms again. Like how did this happen? How did we get back to bell bottoms? (laughs)

How do you go about bringing a Vegas stage show to an outdoor festival?

That’s a hell of a good question. (laughs) I don’t do a lot of outdoor festival shows or afternoon shows, because you lose the lighting and lose a bit of the mystery of it all. The nice thing, though, is that I’m a comedy magician, so I’m not that mysterious-type of “I’m going to make you believe I have a power” guy. I mean, look at me: I look like a Q-tip.

So I’ve definitely got a lot of energy as well, so I’m going to go back to those days when I did a lot of family shows and exhibitions in the summer back in Vancouver and combine that with the same originality that I have on stage now in Vegas. Also, I’m bringing my guest act Lefty, who plays a stagehand in my show but he’s actually a world champion magician.

Not many people know it until halfway through the show when he picks a couple of cards up on the stage and does this really cool card act that he’s very famous for. It’s an interesting type of show where my style is very “Dennis the Menace”: Everything goes to sh*t and goes wrong, and then at the end, there’s actually a miracle and there’s a resolution.

What does it mean to you to be performing PrideFest this year?

I’m impressed, I’m excited and I’m so honored that they asked me. I’m such a supporter of lesbians and gays and the whole community. Since I’ve been in entertainment, we’ve always been a community. It’s never been different for us – or at least for me. It’s always been acceptable. So for people to not to accept it, and this thing going on across the world at times, it throws me off a lot.