Top hats, magic wands and boxes of tricks fill Gregor's Magic Man Magic Shop in downtown Vandergrift.

But selling these tools is just part of what Gregor, or Gregory Strucaly, of Allegheny Township, does as a professional magician who has been performing since he was in grade school in Turtle Creek. He performs on stage, hires himself out for birthday and retirement parties, and is sergeant-at-arms and past president of the Greensburg-based Ring 158 of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

	Pam Panchak, Post-Gazette Magician Gregory Strucaly operates his store, Gregor's Magic Man Magic Shop, in Vandergrift. Click photo for larger image.

Mr. Strucaly has been hired to perform in coffee shops and restaurants and has entertained audiences from Puerto Rico to San Diego to a little town in Canada.

He's also a regular at the Vandergrift Casino Theater Halloween show, which features several performers adept in the mysterious world of magic.

"I'm a carpenter by trade and a magician by birth. I live for it," Mr. Strucaly, 41, said.

He took over the old drugstore space several years ago to fulfill his dream of owning a magic shop in which kids fascinated by the practice of magic, as well as adults who know it's all illusion, can shop for props and cards and silky scarves with special powers.

It all started when he was about 6 and an older relative showed him some tricks.

"I just needed to know more and more," he said.

Through grade school, he practiced doing tricks and his brothers and sister would buy him magic kits for birthdays and Christmas. He said he spent his high school years chasing girls instead of new magic, but he quickly went back to illusions once he graduated.

Basically, there are two types of performance magic: stage and close-up.

Close-up is the card and coin tricks and other sleight-of-hand magic best done with small groups. Stage magic includes bigger tricks like making people disappear.

Mr. Strucaly goes through all of this during the once-a-month meetings of the magic club he sponsors in his Vandergrift shop. This is in addition to the Brotherhood sessions, which are also usually held once a month.

He has members as young as 11 through adults.

Mr. Strucaly has lived in Allegheny Township for five years and has two dogs, a cat and the only pet that actually earns his own keep, Ricky Rabbit, who performs in his show.

He's won awards, including first place at the 2000 Columbus, Ohio, magic festival, an award he had coveted for years.

He practices new tricks until they are mastered and old favorites several times a week to keep them fresh.

As last year's movies with magic themes, "The Prestige" and "The Illusionist," showed, the history of the practice is almost as fascinating as the tricks themselves.

Parlor magic is part of this history.

Mr. Strucaly said during the Victorian era, magicians would be invited to entertain in those grand, overstuffed parlors where they would surprise and delight guests for the evening. This was a time when someone would play a musical instrument or read a poem to amuse people who didn't have media centers or even radios yet.

"I would love to do that," he said.