It’s magic – and it’s being done by a magician on a stage!
This statement seems obvious, but since bringing his successful TruTV Hidden Camera show The Carbonaro Effect to a close in 2020 – this is exactly what comic, actor and dazzling illusionist Michael Carbonaro has been dying most to do.
“It’s incredible,” the magician says about the freedom that comes from returning to touring. “I hate to say it to fans because they all go ‘It must have been so fun making that TV show’ and it was… actually not very fun. It was grueling and really hard!”
“I’m so proud of what that show is and the nights that they aired, and people say it was so funny, then I would get to enjoy it. But that type of instant gratification comes from the live performance. Plus, its kinda nice to be like ‘Hi, I’m magician’ instead of trying to pretend I’m not. I don’t have to try to pretend to get their attention but not too much so they don’t know what’s going on. Instead, we’re like, here to watch a show!”
The show in question is Wonderboy, the new hour from Michael Carbonaro, slated to showcase amazing feats at House of Blues on June 6.
The return is a longtime coming for the New York born entertainer, and with Wonderboy, he is trying stunts he’s never dared and also finding many ways to make the act more personal. “This show is a look back at childhood wonder and imagination into reality – all while being super playful, witty and crazy, sort of how I was as a kid.
“[Wonderboy] is a show with live audience participation,” he explains with a giddy energy. “Kids and adults come up on stage to help out with different tricks. There’s an improvisational fun nature to it, which I think is what people expect from seeing me on The Carbonaro Effect TV show – which is different because on that show I was fooling people who didn’t know I was magician since it was a hidden camera prank show. People are asking ‘Is he still going to try to prank us?’ and the answer is Yes! I actually do!”
Explaining what audiences who discovered him on cable can expect, Carbonaro hits on themes of grandiosity with a focus on the staged nature of the performance. “There’s an act in the show where the audience is in on the trick and the person on the stage doesn’t know what’s going on – and then vice versa, where the person on stage kinda gets in on it with me and we fool the audience together. It’s fun for all ages. I think the premiere act is… I have the audience visualize anything they want in the world that could fit in their hand and then we choose someone completely at random by bouncing a ball around so there’s no way it’s pre-arranged. And whoever person it lands on, I try to manifest that object there on stage!”
Beyond the impossible feats, the 50-year-old performer is also trying to get back to his roots by channeling the earliest impulses that brought him to magic. “My closer is my signature piece which is not really a magic trick, but it is magical,” he confides. “It’s like a performance art piece which I would do as a kid all the time just for myself. I cover myself in shaving cream and sculpt myself to transform into different creatures and monsters, it’s like a little vignette where I am in the bathroom mirror and it’s set to Vivaldi music and it’s a rally beautiful piece that totally blows people’s minds because it comes so out of left field. It’s really rad.”
What childhood means to Carbonaro is under the microscope a bit – but he dovetails it perfectly with how effective the illusions he crafts can be. “I started to remember where there’s really this naivety of youth where you’re more confident and able to access your imagination, creativity, and dreams. As we get older, we kind of harden up and become the people we are, and we lose touch with that. I feel like I was starting to do that, even with the character of who I was as Michael the Magician that the world knew me as. I started to wonder if I was serving up what people think of me instead of who I was really am. This was about reaching back to those times playing, alone and just letting imagination go and not being afraid to be a fool or silly. When we access those parts of ourselves, it really brings joy to everybody.”
Ironically, magic was not what he first thought of for a career. “Honestly, it started with special effects make up,” he says. “I loved monsters and horror movies and while I liked magic, as a kid, I was sure I wanted to become a special effects make-up artist.”
“I used to buy supplies for make up at this local magic shop where I grew up in Long Island. Magic shops are interesting because they have all these elements: costumes and masks and pranks and also magic tricks. I went there for the make-up supplies but then my eyes started diverting to the other side of the store. What I liked about magic is it fulfills the same – like when you create with make-up it’s a type of an illusion and when you act or perform, it’s a type of an illusion.”
“With magic, I found my ability to perform. I liked doing it for people and watching their reactions, and I could be playful and improvise. Special effects make up was a lot of alone time, painting and playing around with my face in the mirror. So I really found myself as a performer by playing with magic tricks.”
“That led to going to NYU for drama and acting, and so I wanted to be an actor and so I was on TV in a bunch of stuff and when The Carbonaro Effect TV show came to fruition, it was kind of a culmination of all those things. I had to be an actor because people had to really believe I was in these moments in real life, that they’re working with me for the day and something crazy happens. Plus I get to be funny because I am playing with the people at home who know it’s a prank, so they are in on it with me with this wink. Plus the magic element, plus the horror element! A lot of the tricks on the show would skew scary like ghosts or voodoo or monsters and things like that. It had a Twilight Zone feel. That brought everything together.”
Carbonaro is so precise about capturing what about magic entices him most, and puts it succinctly. “I love anything that creates an illusion of what it is not. I also love what magic does, because when people drop their jaws when they see something floating or something disappears… and you have that sharp inhale! That excitement is proving for a second – even if you know it’s a trick – that the universe doesn’t work the way you think it works! That’s a really exciting feeling because we think we know everything. You can look anything up, find the answer to everything, but then all of a sudden it looks like a coin has slipped into another dimension! Wait? Maybe there is another dimension! It’s such a freeing feeling.”
Carbonaro’s performance is scheduled for 6 p.m. on June 6 at House of Blues, 1204 Caroline. For information, call 888-402-5837 or visit houseofblues.com/houston. $73-120.
