By Tom Sofield
Credit: Stuart Pettican
For Michael Carbonaro, magic has always been about more than making something disappear.
It is about play, surprise, and the moment when an audience member sees something happen right in front of them and has no idea how it could be real.
Carbonaro, the magician, comedian and star of truTV’s “The Carbonaro Effect,” will bring his new “Wonderboy” tour to Parx Casino’s Xcite Center on Saturday, Sept. 19, at 8 p.m.
The 21-and-over show marks Carbonaro’s third national tour and combines his trademark comedy and close-up magic with extensive audience participation and plenty of surprises.
“It’s essentially a comedy magic show,” Carbonaro said. “I bring a lot of audience participation, people coming up on stage and helping out with magic. It’s a brand new show, and it’s just me playing, having fun, and trying to turn everybody in the audience into a kid for 90 minutes.”
The “Wonderboy” name has a history of its own.
Carbonaro was 13 and performing on Long Island when a promoter billed him as the “Wonderboy of magic and illusion.”
At the time, he wasn’t exactly thrilled.
“At the time I was devastated,” he said. “I’m like, the WonderBoy? Everyone’s gonna make fun of me. But in hindsight, I look back on that and I’m like, what a great name. I grew up kind of as a wonderboy. Magic was a superpower.”
That sense of childhood wonder runs through the new show.
For viewers who know Carbonaro primarily from “The Carbonaro Effect,” the live performance provides a different experience. The hidden-camera series puts Carbonaro in front of unsuspecting members of the public as he performs seemingly impossible magic, while viewers at home watch the reactions.
There is no TV screen separating Carbonaro from the audience, he said.
“I love getting to see people come and see me live and be like, ‘oh wow, this stuff is happening right here in front of me in real time,’” Carbonaro explained. “This is legit. It’s really happening.”
Carbonaro said performing for an audience in person is a different challenge from performing magic for TV.
On “The Carbonaro Effect,” he has two audiences to consider: the unsuspecting person experiencing the trick and the viewer watching at home.
“Everything had to be kind of double choreographed,” he said. “How is it gonna look for the home viewer and how is it gonna look for the person, and how can we get them both to ride the same experience?”
The live show eliminates that second perspective and instead puts the audience directly into the experience.
One of the show’s featured segments is called “Anything from Anywhere.” Before the performance, audience members write down an object they can hold in their hand. The suggestions are placed in a glass on stage throughout the show.
One is selected at random, and Carbonaro attempts to make the object appear on stage.
“Every night it’s a different object, and every night I make something appear that’s right out of someone’s imagination,” he said. “It’s like this object blooms from nowhere. It’s a part of the show where it actually goes pretty theatrical and it gets serious for a second, and then this beautiful moment happens.”
There is also a member of the Carbonaro touring team who is difficult for even the magician to compete with.
His toy poodle appears on stage as Wonder Pup, complete with a super suit and a role as Carbonaro’s sidekick.
“I cannot compete with the toy poodle in a super suit,” Carbonaro said with a laugh. “That is on fire. Every night the crowd will be going crazy — that’s just a surefire thing.”
Carbonaro’s husband travels with the show as a backstage assistant and, in Carbonaro’s words, the show’s “lovely assistant.”
With the poodle along for the ride, Carbonaro describes the touring setup as “a family operation.”
The show’s final act brings the performance back to Carbonaro’s childhood.
“Shaving Dream” is a performance art piece inspired by something he did as a child while standing in front of a mirror. Using his father’s shaving cream, Carbonaro would sculpt himself into different creatures, including a devil, a skeleton and a monkey.
He would then wash it all away without telling anyone what he had been doing.
“I thought I’d get in trouble for using up all the shaving cream,” he said.
The memory resurfaced years later when Carbonaro was in theater school and thinking about what had made him creative as a child.
He began to see the possibility of turning the childhood game into a theatrical performance.
“There’s something there that could be like a really cool, almost like mime clowning kind of silent act of just a guy looking into a mirror — which is really the audience — and sculpting himself into all these creatures,” he said. “It ties in the whole me being a kid again and just having this ability to transform into anything you want to be. I think that’s the heart of magic right there — transformation and play.”
For audience members who are accustomed to trying to figure out how Carbonaro’s tricks work, he said the finale is different.
“There’s nothing to figure out,” the veteran entertainer said. “You get to see the strings of the puppet. You’re like, oh wow, this is just so magical and I don’t have to worry how it’s being done. I’m just watching it being done.”
Carbonaro’s own path into magic began somewhat unexpectedly.
He initially was fascinated by special effects makeup, inspired by horror movies and issues of Fangoria magazine that he got hold of “way too early.” He began buying magic tricks at the same shop where he purchased makeup supplies.
Then he discovered that magic gave him something special.
“When I played with magic tricks in front of people, I was funny,” he said. “I loved watching their reactions, and I loved engaging and creating these moments. It just felt like the only thing I would ever want to do in my whole life.”
He eventually put himself through NYU by performing at birthday parties, bar mitzvahs and private events — sometimes four in a single weekend.
That experience, Carbonaro said, was his real education.
“There’s no amount of reading or playing or practicing in front of a mirror that can give you what you get when you’re just performing, performing, performing,” he stated.
Beyond “The Carbonaro Effect,” Carbonaro has appeared on “Law & Order: SVU,” “CSI: Miami” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” He has been named Magician of the Year by the Academy of Magical Arts and is the sole recipient of the Copperfield Prize, which was awarded for elevating the art of magic itself.
With “Wonderboy,” Carbonaro said he is taking that longtime fascination with magic, comedy, and transformation back to its simplest idea: making people feel like kids again.
The show is scheduled for 8 p.m. Sept. 19 at Parx Casino’s Xcite Center. The performance is for those 21 and older.
Tickets are available for the performance.
This article was produced in collaboration with Parx Casino.
Published Sept. 14, 2026.