Community Corner

The Woman Behind Peekskill's Magic

Peekskill's Magical Margo, Margaret Steele, is not only one of the nation's leading magicians, but is a published author, professional musician and licensed acupuncturist.

Margaret Steele moved to Peekskill one year ago with more than a bag of tricks. Steele has thirty interesting years of experience as a Broadway oboe player, a performer and a magician. She is also a licensed acupuncturist; extremely knowledgeable on the ancient art and practice.

Who better to do your acupuncture treatments than a woman who works magic?

In this month’s issue of Magic, Unity, Might (MUM) magazine, a premier magic magazine, the editors have dedicated the front cover and six inside pages to Steele’s life story, magic and new book, “Adelaide Herrmann, Queen of Magic – Memoirs, Writings, Collected Ephemera.” The book is a collection of memoirs from one of the most popular female magicians from the late 1800s; a woman on which little was known until Steele started her research.

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“Steele is a modern day magician who bows to the magical arts of the past masters while giving her presentations a taste of her own charm,” writes MUM’s Bruce Kalver, PNP.

Kalver chronicles Steele’s life from when she was 8-years-old and first became interested in magic, to her years as a Broadway musician, playing for shows like “Beauty and the Beast,” “Wicked” and “Les Miserables,” to when she became a “Woodwind Wizard” making elementary school woodwind quartet performances more exciting for the kids. Steele holds a Masters and Bachelors degree in performance from Julliard.

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Among the many interested tidbits on Steele’s life is that she once filled in for Rod Stewart’s oboe player at the last minute and had to sight-read a solo in front of 17,000 people at the Madison Square Concert.

While Steele supporter herself by playing music professionally, she developed an interest in magic.

Kalver writes:

‘Both magic and music are a ‘sculpture in time.’ They both have a beginning, a middle, and an end. They both have a form and a shape. They both have a pulse and a beat. They have the smaller parts that come together as a whole.’ Margaret actually practiced magic with a metronome to help with pacing.

Steele met famous magician Jeff McBride in the early 90s, who then led her deeper into the magic scene. She eventually came to know Eugene Burger, Bob Fitch and other famous magicians. In the early 90s Steele started hanging out at Mostly Magic club in Manhattan (now closed).

After a year of auditioning at the Mostly Magic club, Steele got a job there, which propelled her into a professional magician career. She continued to support herself as a professional musician until 2008, which is when she retired from music and graduated from the Swedish Institute, College of Health Sciences with her master of Science degree in Acupuncture.

“I began to see the writing on the walls with the economy,” Steele said of working in the high-pressure world of professional music. “It is really hard for musicians to find work now.”

But as Steele was still working as a musician she was honing her magician skills and becoming recognized as one of the greats. (Steele has now performed on five continents).

In the late 90s, a magic teacher approached her about performing a complicated and beautiful act that had originally been performed by a male magician who was soon to retire.

She mastered the act and after a performance was recognized by an expert on Adelaide Herrmann, the 19th century magician. The expert explained to Steele how her performance skills were similar to Hermanns.

This, of course, piqued Steele’s interest in the historic woman, and led to her research on Herrman’s role in magic 100 years ago.

“It is interesting that she is exactly 100 years older than me,” Steele said.

Herrmann had taken over her husband’s magician career after he died, spent 30 years performing and was considered the most famous female magician of her time.

In 2008 Steele found old newspaper clippings on Herrmann – many that mentioned the woman’s memoires, but there was no information on where those personal stories were held. Steele searched and contacted relatives, but to no avail.

Until 2010, when a descendent of Herrmann’s found the book of the memoires, along with some other things. Steele was contacted by the group the relative reached out to and purchased the book.

Those memoires will now be forever preserved in Steele’s compilation, "Adelaide Herrmann, Queen of Magic – Memoirs, Writings, Collected Ephemera."

MUM provided an excerpt about how Adelaide and her husband disappointed an audience that was expecting a bloody de-heading but got a good magic trick, but no blood.

Steele will be presenting her book this November at the Los Angeles Conference of Magic History where she will also lecture. She will also speak at the Magic Circle in London in June 2012.

You can catch one of Steele’s shows at the Legend Celebration- Washington Irving’s Sunnyside Oct. 29-30, or at almost any of the large festivals in Peekskill or surrounding areas. She has also performed at the Bean Runner Café and for private parties.

To contact Steele, visit her Magic Loft website here

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