Bio
Vlad Kraven spent more than a decade as a time traveler. While visiting the year 1923 on holiday, walking down a street in Downtown Manhattan, he saw a strange little man hanging upside-down off of the side of a building. Joining the curious crowd quickly gathering below, he realized that the man was trying to escape from a straight jacket. It turned out that the odd attention-seeker was in none other than the Great Harry Houdini himself.
At that moment, he decided that he would himself become a professional magician. Unfortunately, he was absolutely terrible at magic and quickly gave up.
The story would have ended there is it wasn’t for a lucky mishap in the late 80′s. Himself having been born in Ukraine on April 30, 1987, he decided to visit the date and see what baby Vlad was really like. Unfortunately, for reasons still unclear, an error in the space-time continuum spit him out exactly one year early (1986) and 300 miles off of his chosen destination, in a small city called Chernobyl.
Due to a minor mishap days earlier, Chernobyl was slightly irradiated at the time and Vlad found himself in the middle of that warm radioactive embrace. Unfortunately for him, his time travel device began to malfunction and he was forced to walk out of the immediate fallout zone.
In spite of a nagging feeling of nausea, he walked through the day and into the night. In the evening he realized that his body was beginning to change and when the sun set, he noticed that he was glowing in a particularly unpleasant shade of green. His skin was literally like a lit lantern. Fortunately, that freaky gift would only last for another week or two before fading out.
More curiously however, while walking through the woods, he encountered a Russian vagrant named Ilya. It is important to note that Vlad’s parents immigrated to the United States when he was just a delinquent, baby boy. Growing up in America, he didn’t learn a word of Russian. But when the drunk vagabond said something to him, Vlad not only understood, but somehow responded in fluent Russian.
And Russian fluency was not the only power he gained. Having hiked through the Ukrainian countryside for three days, he began to notice certain other peculiarities. With nothing but a pack of playing cards in his pocket, he began fiddling with the pasteboards to stay busy. Where he was once unable to shuffle the cards without making a mess, Vlad could suddenly perform some of the most complicated shuffles and flourishes known to man.
c. 1954
He quickly learned that his magical prowess extended to other items: the pebbles and twigs on the ground, the coins in his pocket and the leaves on the trees. And he wasn’t just doing fancy flourishes with the items, he was making them appear, disappear, multiply and change. It was extraordinary…it was magical.
Confident in his new powers, Vlad decided to climb up the nearest tree and levitate down from it. Jumping down, he quickly learned that defying gravity was not one of his gifts.
He would continue to toy with his new powers, later learning that he could do many more things, such as bending metal cutlery with his mind (strangely, that power didn’t extend to plastic spoons and forks), reading people’s thoughts, moving objects with an invisible energy force and affecting fire like a true sorcerer. Fearing that people knowing about his abilities would garner undue attention and unnecessary risk, he decided to pretend to be a mere trickster; simply an entertaining magician.
With the perfect cover story in place, he decided to return home. Fortunately for him, the time travel device began working again, and he made it back to present-day NY in one piece. After that, Vlad has vowed to never risk time travel again, instead focusing on his new career as a ‘magician.’
He has since traveled throughout the United States and Europe with his act, and learned from some of the most brilliant entertainers and performers in the world. He would go on to study acting, music and art, incorporating all of the lessons he learned into his craft. He has since worked in restaurants, for celebrities, as a magic consultant (tv and theater) and more.
Mr. Kraven would also be honored at the opportunity of performing at your next event, whether a wedding, corporate function, birthday party or any other gathering of your choice. Feel free to contact him for booking information and rates.
