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July 19, 2024 |聽By Kirstin Fawcett (AGI26)

Nathan Coe Marsh (A05) caught the magic bug when he was 11 years old. 鈥淎 friend of my parents was an amateur magician, and he came over and at our dinner table levitated a dollar bill,鈥� Marsh says. 鈥淚 was fascinated by it.鈥澛�

Decades later, Marsh is now a successful touring magician who performs for audiences around the world; holds cruise ship and hotel residencies; and guest-appears on TV channels and programs such as NBC, CBS, FOX, and Penn & Teller: Fool Us. But he first began seriously pursuing his childhood passion as a Johnnie in Annapolis, where, between first-year tutorials and seminars, he routinely traveled three hours via bus to neighboring Baltimore County. A legendary retired magician, Denny Haney, had operated a magic shop called Denny & Lee Magic Studio in Essex, Maryland. It was there that Marsh learned the tricks of the trade鈥攁nd mustered the courage to apply for a transformative summer job teaching magic to kids at a camp in the Poconos.

Marsh found himself in his element while at camp. 鈥淎s a performer, there are nights when everything aligns,鈥� Marsh says. 鈥淵ou are naturally in sync with the whole audience. I had one of those nights during one of my very first shows, and it became very clear, under the stars in rural Pennsylvania, that performing and connecting with strangers in that way was what I was really meant to do.鈥�

Back in Annapolis, meanwhile, the Program鈥檚 unconventional nature was helping to prepare Marsh for an unconventional career path. He had first heard about St. John鈥檚 as a bookish high schooler in Tampa, Florida. When friends 鈥渟tarted getting marketing materials for St John鈥檚,鈥� he says, 鈥渁ll of them were like, hey, it looks like somebody designed a school just for Nathan.鈥�

Marsh says he gained confidence, creativity, and resilience while working his way through the Western canon and tackling history鈥檚 most complex questions head-on. 鈥淎s a magician, you鈥檙e literally having to solve impossible problems,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd I think there鈥檚 really something to be said for having to work your way through Lobachevsky on your own age at age 22 without having someone pre-digest it and hand it to you. You鈥檙e not intimidated.鈥�

Four years after his first meeting in Maryland with Haney, Marsh moved back to Florida post-graduation, where he began performing at a local dinner theater and a comedy club. He steadily booked larger venues, and in 2016 he learned that the popular magic reality show Penn & Teller: Fool Us was accepting video submissions from potential guests. Ever the Johnnie, Marsh did his homework, studying past episodes and analyzing each performer鈥檚 act. His takeaway was that the show鈥檚 casting unit was looking for tricks that were visually striking and conceptually interesting, so Marsh custom-designed a new act to fit these criteria.

鈥淭here was an empty jar on a pole,鈥� he recounts, 鈥渁nd the audience writes down a bunch of things that could appear in the top of it. And [actress] Alyson Hannigan, who was the host, chose one of those things, and it appeared inside the jar. But then after it has appeared in the jar, it becomes apparent that it had to come into existence inside a jar because it doesn鈥檛 fit through its opening.鈥�

惭补谤蝉丑鈥檚 Penn & Teller appearance was a watershed moment that led to him booking even more TV appearances and in-person shows. Today, the magician has performed on six continents; been hired by companies like Microsoft and GE for corporate events; and appeared everywhere from Hawaii, where he once held a six-month headline residency at resorts in Oahu and Maui, to U.S. military bases in Iraq. Recently, he was selected as the first-ever headline entertainer to perform onboard the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection鈥檚 luxury cruise ships. Marsh currently spends nine to ten months out of the year traveling for his career. Back home in Florida, he has also served as the vice president of education for the Greater Orlando Chapter of Meeting Professionals International and worked across the entertainment industry.

The summer of 2024 saw Marsh Mediterranean-bound when he did two shows for the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection during a voyage from Venice to Athens and also presented a lecture on the history of magic. While he hasn鈥檛 sat down at a seminar table in years, he still sees parallels to St. John鈥檚 wherever he goes.

鈥淭he craft of magic is this living thing鈥攊t鈥檚 a conversation across generations,鈥� Marsh reflects. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e working on a trick, you go and research it. You read about the method and look at how things have changed, and you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of past approaches to it while you鈥檙e doing it.鈥� And like the conversations he had back in Annapolis, it never truly ends.