About Charles

Charles Schneider has spent his life studying the art of illusion and the craft of performance—where history, stagecraft, and psychology meet. His fascination with the fantastical, weird, and macabre is expressed through a mercurial sensibility: darkly playful, sometimes comedic, and always intent on captivating the audience.

 

Whether he’s creating haunting film visions, building characters, or refining scenes, Schneider approaches magic as a disciplined art of misdirection, rhythm, and reveal.

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As an actor, artist, and writer, Schneider’s abilities in performance directly inform his talent as a magician, sharpening both his sleight of hand and his instincts for dramatic timing and theatrical presence. His darkly playful cinematic and visual work carries the same atmosphere found in his oil paintings, his horror stories and poems, and his elusive, highly sought-after collections—works that draw readers and collectors into the spell of the strange.

 

He has even edited books that reflect his deep pursuit of wonder and concealment in popular culture, including “Burlesque Paraphernalia” (Fantagraphics Books), bridging the aesthetics of esoteric mysticism with the showmanship of living magic.