POE'S MAGIC THEATRE · ABOUT

Why Poe's exists.

I'm from Baltimore, and I want my hometown represented in the best way possible. The city has been through a lot, unfairly more often than not. Downtown needed a place of wonder, something people would come here for on purpose, and I'm a magician, so I built the only kind of place of wonder I actually know how to build.

Baltimore used to be a magic town. Harry Kellar passed his wand to Howard Thurston here, at Ford's Theatre, which in magic circles is roughly the equivalent of a coronation, and the city kept a magic club scene and even a secret society going afterward. Somewhere along the way the downtown stages went quiet. The magicians never left, though, and what they were missing was a place in the middle of the city to perform.

That's what Poe's Magic Theatre is for. Magicians from Baltimore and the surrounding area get a real stage inside the Lord Baltimore Hotel, a 1928 landmark with a reputation it earned honestly, and anyone can walk in off West Baltimore Street and leave arguing about what they saw. Poe's Magic Club gives local magicians somewhere to learn from each other, and Poe's Magic Conference brings the rest of the magic world here once a year to see what Baltimore has been up to.

Poe's opened in 2019 inside the Lord Baltimore Hotel. When the hotel closed in 2021, the theatre kept going at a Holiday Inn, then came home when the Lord Baltimore reopened. The name isn't decoration, either: I served on the board of the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum from 2022 to 2025.

As for me, since somebody always asks: I've worked in magic and the paranormal since 1998, mostly in bizarre magic, mentalism, séances and sideshow. I've appeared on CNN, PBS, Discovery, National Geographic and the Travel Channel, lectured at The Magic Circle in London and the Chicago Magic Lounge, and I write for History Press. In 2026 the International Brotherhood of Magicians gave me its Award of Merit, and I landed on the cover of The Linking Ring. I'd rather you judged all that by the shows, and there's probably one this weekend.

Vince Wilson
Founder and Owner, Poe's Magic Theatre