Jen Kramer conjured her way to the top tier of magicians in Las Vegas and she’s on a mission to inspire other women: “I would love to see in this historically male-dominated field more young girls becoming interested in magic. I would say, ‘Go for it.’”

Jen Kramer: female headliner

Jen became the first woman in more then a decade to headline a Las Vegas magic show in 2018. Then Covid-19 struck. The Strip shut and Las Vegas folded its cards.

Jen’s no quitter, though. She’s already redefined magic in many ways, including establishing a magic rehab program to help brain and spinal cord injury patients. So Jen rode out the pandemic, started performing online, and pushed herself to reimagine what a magic show might look like without volunteers on stage.

“Now we have a way to get someone in the audience to star in the routine from their seat and make a legitimate contribution to the show,” Jen said.

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Jen Kramer: magical superhero

Jen Kramer is a long way from home where she grew up in Great Neck, Long Island just outside of New York City. A budding musician since the age of 10, she put together a routine and cold-called the local Barnes & Noble asking if they’d like a volunteer magician to perform in the children’s book section. She was on the store’s payroll by the age of 14 and taking bookings for private parties.

Still, Jen knew the odds were heavily stacked against her. Only seven percent of magicians operating in the US are female and the numbers were even lower when Jen Kramer first joined the Young Magicians Assembly No. 69 at age 12.

Melinda Saxe, the first woman to headline a Vegas show in the 1980s, blazed the trail but only a handful of women have followed since - Jen was determined to be one of them.

Magic superhero

Jen studied theater at Yale  - “only because witchcraft and wizardry was not an option” - and apprenticed during her summers with Las Vegas’ legendary Nathan Burnton. She learned how to organize and promote a show as well as honing her magic. Jen was hooked. Before she’d even graduated, Jen was back in her dorm room cold-calling Vegas hotels and pitching her idea for a family-friendly show.

“All I needed was one yes. If I got one yes, it was a success. It didn’t matter if I got 10 ‘no’s’ or 20 ‘no’s’ or 30 ‘no’s’.”

Jen finally heard ‘yes’. She was offered a single slot performing one night a week on Wednesday at 7 pm. It was her best shot, so Jen graduated from university in 2014 and jumped on a plane.

Breaking through the glass ceiling

One night a week led to two. After four years of pushing through the glass ceiling, Jen Kramer was made a headliner at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort’s theater.

 It wasn’t just any old gig. In 1969, Elvis performed for 58 consecutive sold out shows at the Westgate and lived in the hotel’s 30th-floor penthouse. Jen Kramer was now, officially, Vegas Royalty.

Legendary magician David Blaine described her as “one of the most talented and most promising young magicians anywhere."
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Creative challenges

The pandemic dimmed Vegas’ neon lights in 2020, however. Nevada governor Steve Sisolak declared a state of emergency on March 12, 2020. Four days later, Nevada reported its first death.The hospitality industry was severely hit. Although the Westgate hotel was allowed to re-open in September 2020, Jen was still sidelined. Live shows were still forbidden, so she got to work rebuilding her post-pandemic performance.

“It’s been a real creative challenge, going through … all the moments where the audience would touch props or come up on stage, especially in a show like mine, which is heavy on audience participation,” she told the Las Vegas Sun. “I’ve been working with my team of magic engineers and consultants to dream up new ways to do some of the magic.”

The publicity lessons learned while apprenticing with Nathan Burton paid off. Jen started building up her YouTube channel and entertained fans at home before she was finally allowed back onstage in May 2021. 
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Jen Kramer: True Superhero ‍

The mark of a True Superhero is someone who perseveres in the face of adversity, gives back to the community, and inspires others which has always been Jen’s philosophy.

Even before she started performing regularly, Jen was practicing healing magic. In high school, she established a rehabilitation program focused on magic for brain and spinal cord injury patients at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and performed magic on the hospital’s closed-circuit television station to entertain patients.

She also produced the American Cancer Society benefit ‘Magic: A Cure is in the Cards’ and performed magic shows while volunteering at a soup kitchen and benefit walkathons.

Jen has also taught and performed magic with Tom and Janet Verner through their non-profit Magicians Without Borders, which has entertained more than 1m of the most forgotten people in the world including children at risk. The group has also created a long-term education program to increase children’s self-confidence, discipline, and self-esteem, and established a Scholarship fund to empower children to finish High School. More recently, Jen joined the charity’s advisory board.
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After her Vegas shows - where Jen remains the only female magician headliner on the Strip - she looks forward to meet-and-greets afterward because that’s her chance to inspire fans one-on-one: “Young girls will come up to me and say, ‘Wow, that’s so cool. I want to become a magician.’”