Teen magicians get tricky for Sydney Fringe show

THEIR skills belie their young ages, but teen illusionists Lucas Itrawan and Ash Hodgkinson have much to show off at the Sydney Fringe ahead of their first international tour

Teen magicians Lucas Itrawan and Ash Hodgkinson. Picture: John Fotiadis

BARELY 15 years old and already magicians on the rise Lucas Itrawan and Ash Hodgkinson are preparing for their first international tour. The pair are off to India later in the year for shows in Mumbai and Delhi, with mentor-manager and fellow illusionist Adam Mada. Before then, though, the duo has a run of their Sydney Fringe Kids show Cardistry Cubed at Newtown’s Old 505 Theatre this month.

While they work closely together now, Lucas and Ash found their way into magic very separately.

For Ash Hodgkinson it was via a city shopping trip with his mum five years ago.

“We saw some street performers, and one of them was a magician, so I walked up to him, and he showed me a trick, and it blew my mind, so when we got home, I searched all the tricks on the internet, trying to learn as much as I could,” the Cherrybrook student recalls.

Meanwhile, around the same time, Northbridge lad Lucas Itrawan was making his own way into the magician’s craft.

“My grandfather used to teach me heaps of different things. Then, after he died, we were cleaning up all his stuff and in one of his secret draws we found a deck of cards, with some magic instructions, so I picked them up and started learning and although it was a sad time, it was
also good, because I could surprise people while all that was going on,” Lucas says.

Separately, the pair began making treks to Hey Presto! a magic store in the city which is also something of a hub for the community in Sydney.

It’s there that a friendship was forged, which then became a creative partnership.

“We’d both seen Penn and Teller and they were a big inspiration, so that gave us the idea,” Lucas says.

When they travelled to Melbourne a couple of years later for a magic festival, the budding illusionists caught seasoned pro Adam Mada in action, caught up with him for an autograph afterwards then and began emailing him for advice.

He’s a busy man. You’d probably know him from the likes of Channel 10s Studio 10 show, as well as other TV performances, and his live work, both solo and with fellow illusionists as part of the Band Of Magicians. But he ended up taking Lucas and Ash on as a support act, then he became something of a mentor, then they decided to formalise the arrangement and he’s now their manager as well.

“They had so much passion and enthusiasm and I know the only way you can get anywhere is to knock on doors and keep knocking,” Mada says.

“But it wasn’t just them, it was also their parents, and it’s hard in the arts to find parents who are so supportive so the fact their parents were behind them meant I could bring them on.”

What can we expect from the Fringe show? Plenty of close-up card magic, and some new stuff, really intricate work with Rubik’s cubes.

“You can expect to be blown away,” Ash says.

* Sydney Fringe Kids: Cardistry Cubed, Old 505, 5 Eliza St, Newtown; $22, sydneyfringe.com