Rising Stars: Meet Magical Katrina Kroetch of Downtown

Today we’d like to introduce you to Magical Katrina Kroetch.

Hi Magical Katrina; we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story starts with me as a princess at children’s parties. I didn’t begin as a magician, I wanted to do acting and musical theater, and I stumbled into this. I wanted to be an actress, not just any actress when I was a little girl. I wanted to be Judy Garland because I was obsessed with The Wizard of Oz. I loved musicals, and musicals often had lots of magic in them. I did a lot of community theater, internships at theater companies, musicals, and summer workshops in Portland, Oregon, where I am originally from. But when I was 18, I went a little off the usual path and attended clown school. While there, I didn’t just learn about comedy -I met jugglers, clowns, and circus performers, and one of my classmates was a Spiderman at children’s parties. He connected me with a party event agent. The agency taught me simple magic tricks, face painting and balloon animals, and princess costumes. They could have given me a better education. It was a sink-or-swim type of job. But I was very good at improvising and making things up, so even though it was challenging and new, I could learn pretty fast and pretend my way through what I didn’t know. That party princess job was my gateway drug into magic. I soon realized how much I enjoyed performing magic at birthday parties, and it became my favorite part of my gigs as a princess at children’s parties. I started studying magic on my own and developing my own children’s show with princess themes and quickly began offering longer and longer shows and phasing out my face painting and balloon twisting.

Soon I dropped the princess themes in my magic show, stopped working for those companies, and went out on my own to be a magician. I was doing magic. I started doing magic as myself. To this day, I’m one of the only female magicians that were a princess and now perform as myself and don’t hide behind being a princess or Disney character to do magic shows. I perform like the boys do – as myself. There are many other female magicians -but still fewer than male ones. It’s a very male-dominated industry. Something is inspiring and special for little girls to see a strong female magician who is her person, is grounded in reality, is relatable, and isn’t a fictional character. Something they can grow up with and aspire to be.

Whenever I do a magic show, I try to do the magic show that 6-year-old me would have wanted to see. I started getting a lot of calls to do magic for birthday parties and teach magic lessons to little girls and boys, which became a very successful business. Now I do virtual magic lessons and have many students from all over the country -which is super cool. I worked very hard on doing close-up magic. I took every magic class or workshop offered nationally and internationally. I’ve studied magic from the best of the best in Hollywood and Vegas, and soon I’ll be doing a workshop in Sweden. I started performing magic for adults at corporate events and weddings 6 years ago. I’ve performed for huge companies and names like NASA, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Sony, etc.

My favorite is performing virtual shows for work-from-home-type companies. For in-person events, I love card magic. It’s my favorite. I do a lot of magic for weddings and corporate events and try to have at least one card trick in each show. I think my feminine touch and storytelling background help with my unique romantic-themed magic tricks for wedding magic. That is why I’m among the top-rated wedding magicians on Yelp, Gigmasters.com, and Gigsalad.com.

In my early 20s, I did the whole acting and audition circuit. I got an agent and would do commercial casting calls, but I always got more joy from performing magic. I quickly realized that magic gave me a feeling of creative expression and freedom that acting never gave me. I love writing my magical scripts and creating new routines and ideas. Those are things I never got to do when acting.

As an actor, you’re sort of a “puppet” for other people’s ideas, and that wasn’t as appealing to me as being a magician was. In magic, I get to be whatever I want instead of commercial auditions where I’d be another “redhead #2” on the call sheet. I felt like a sheep in acting, but in magic, I got to be whatever I wanted as long as I put in the hard work and created a magic routine I’m proud of.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have a special place in my heart for acting, and I always use those skills. I use my Second City improv training, Groundlings character classes, standup comedy, and script-writing knowledge for magic. Those theatrical elements and skills help give my show more meaning and entertainment value.

Before the pandemic, I traveled the world performing magic and have performed in Mumbai, India, for a fancy wedding in Munich, Germany, for a German magic show. I toured through Mexico with the stage show Champions of Magic. I also volunteered to perform magic in Africa and Brazil with Magicians Without Borders.

Alright, let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what challenges have you had to overcome?
It wasn’t always easy to be a full-time female magician for corporate events, but I could always survive and make it work without taking another job. Before the pandemic, I traveled the world performing magic and performed in Mumbai, India, for a fancy wedding in Munich, Germany, for a German magic show. I also volunteered to perform magic in Africa and Brazil with Magicians Without Borders. When the pandemic started, all of my in-person shows were canceled at the beginning of March 2020, which was really scary. I had been performing magic and various arts at events for over 10 years full-time and had no idea what I would do with my life.

I had to think fast and make it my new niche to survive. Thankfully, I acted fast and created a Patreon (www.patreon.com/magicalkatrina) Where people could subscribe to my magic videos and support the magical art I was creating. That has been super helpful during this time. I also started offering virtual magic shows, which have taken off in the last few years. I have done virtual magic shows for Lockheed Martin, Nasa, and many other big companies. I entered a virtual magic contest and won first place, so now I have an award-winning virtual magic show. That helped me advertise my virtual magic shows.

It’s scary doing virtual magic because now I’m not just competing with local Magicians for the same magic shows -now I’m competing with top magicians worldwide. It’s an entirely different market and world for performing magic. But it is really exciting! I just had an article about performing virtual magic shows published in an international magazine called “The Linking Ring” for magicians. That was a massive honor. It’s a new world, but I’m finding my way, and 3 years later, I have been able to take something scary and harness it to get ahead and become more successful.

Even though I’m not always the most talented person (I feel imposter syndrome constantly), I’m still a hard worker. -When I was auditioning for the network magic show that I’m going to be on, I had to jump through so many hoops and change up my act for months and months, and I didn’t ever give up or take my eye off the prize. I put everything I could into it, and that dream of doing magic on network TV became a reality because I worked hard and pressed on even when it seemed like it wouldn’t happen. I made it happen. It wasn’t just luck. Success is 50 percent who you know and 50 percent hard work. -Both of which you can rig in your favor.

Thanks for sharing that. So, you could tell us a bit more about your work.
I’m different from many of my competition because I’m one of the few full-time female magicians in America. There are several of us, but we are a small percentage compared to the men. I specialize in Wedding magic, corporate events; magic shows for companies, trade show magic, and close-up magic, which is even more of a niche.

Now and then, I’ll do a magic show at a birthday party for kids, too; I love making kids giggle and smile. I love inspiring them. Something is inspiring and special for little girls to see a strong female magician that is her person, is semi-grounded in reality, is relatable, and isn’t a fictional princess or character. Something they can grow up with and aspire to be. Whenever I perform a magic show, I try to do the magic show that 6-year-old me would have wanted to see. The world needs more female magicians, female presidents, and female president-magicians.

I always enjoy my job. Nowadays, I mainly do corporate magic, Weddings, Tradeshow booth magic, keynote speaking, or virtual magic shows for companies which I enjoy because it challenges me to create more complex magic acts. I love coming up with new magic to fit a theme for a corporate magic show or close-up wedding magic and making something special for each client’s magic needs. I enjoy tailoring my magic tricks to different companies and goals for their events. It helps me mix it up and be creative.

I chose to take the good with the bad during the pandemic and try to have a positive outlook. I love doing virtual magic shows locally and all over America because I can do close-up magic and stage magic in one single show and film myself and do it from anywhere, so I have much more freedom in my job than ever. It’s really lovely working from home.

We’d like to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you.
You make your luck through hard work and perseverance. I would never have gotten on television shows like Penn and Teller Fool Us or Masters of Illusion multiple times performing magic if I didn’t push myself and kept going despite hearing nos. We can do anything we put our minds to if we remain focused and don’t give up.

Pricing:

• Depends on the event details.

Contact Info:

• Gmail: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.patreon.com/magicalkatrina
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themagicalkatrina/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrinakroetch/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/magicalkatrina_?lang=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/magicalkatrina
• Other: www.magicalkits.com

Image Credits
1) Pink stripes looking photo: Dropoout Photography, 2) Penn and Teller Fool Us Stage Photo: Penn and Teller Fool Us, 3) Fanning little cards wearing blue and red photo: Prestige Video Production, 4) Paris Photo: Photography 29 5) Tradeshow booth: Kallisti Photography, 6) Corproate Meeting Photo: Kallisti Photography