Gay illusionists showcase their authentic acts

The Westcar Papyrus was discovered in the early 1800s, an ancient Egyptian text that historians have dated between the 18th and 16th centuries B.C. It documents improbable acts performed by the civilization’s most mysterious members.

One such tale was that of Dedi, a commoner widely considered by some to be one of the first-recorded illusionists. Described as a 110-year-old man capable of eating 500 loaves of bread and drinking 100 jars of beer each day, he could allegedly tame wild lions on command and even “mend a severed head.”

Dedi was summoned by the Pharoah Khufu, who sought sorcery in the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza. After convincing the ruler it would be immoral to execute a prisoner for his act, he utilized three animals to showcase his talents, “beheading” and “resurrecting” them before his eyes.

Whether fact or fiction, similar accounts of Egyptians utilizing misdirection and mechanics to accomplish the impossible are supported by historical evidence. Priests and magicians utilized their tricks of the trade to curry favor with pharaohs, influence their subjects and create dazzling deceptions for each.

Similar feats have been celebrated ever since, evolving into the modern performance art we see today. From Vaudeville to Vegas, dynamic duos like Siegfried and Roy and Penn and Teller as well as stage sensations like David Copperfield, Harry Houdini and Karl Germain have amazed audiences for more than a century.

It was Germain who credited the industry’s authenticity for its longevity. “Magic is the only honest profession,” he shared. “A magician promises to deceive you and he does.”

Be that as it may, openly gay illusionists in Central Florida and Tampa Bay have proven for years that even in deception, they can still be true to themselves. We spoke with three of these magic men – Central Florida’s Nick Comis of “Nick’s Parlor Tricks” and husbands Chris and Ryan Zubrick of Tampa Bay’s incoming Zubrick Magic Theatre – about their authentic acts.

SOLO STAR

“The magic’s not real, but we want to have real interactions,” Comis says. “When I pull someone on stage, I’m not just reading the script. I want to be a genuine person and I want to get to know them. The experience becomes more about those interactions.

“If you’re putting up the additional facade, it’s even harder to live truthfully in those circumstances,” he continues. “It makes you a better performer if you can connect with your audience.”

The 37-year-old illusionist, a North Carolina native who’s called Orlando home for more than a decade, has worked to make those connections professionally since he was 21. That’s when he created his first magic show in a small, independent casino in Nevada.

Comis had moved there to attend college, drawn to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) for its hospitality program centering on entertainment.

“After high school I decided to focus on magic,” he says. “I took all of UNLV’s related classes in the first year and after that, quit to start working for different production companies.”

Also a DJ, Comis’ love for illusion has always extended to the industry’s use of the stage, specifically its lighting and sound. After college, he worked diligently to enhance his technical understanding of each.

“I used my relationships working for other shows to create my own,” Comis says. The casino he was working in ultimately closed, but his experiences introduced him to the National Association for Campus Activities.

The organization works to provide engaging entertainment to transform the college experience for students across the country. Showcasing his work led the illusionist to form a traveling show and tour the nation.

“I moved back to the East Coast and started doing my magic show at different colleges and universities,” Comis recalls.

One such show was called “Dangerous Magic,” in which he sought to engage audiences by performing large-scale illusions in non-traditional spaces, a specialty of his.

“Nick Comis connects with audiences by combining classic magic with a contemporary twist,” the illusionist’s official biography reads. “By combining comedy, amazing lighting, mesmerizing projections and unbelievable magic, Nick immerses the audience in a full theatrical show that will leave you stunned and amazed.

“During his performance you will question your senses as he deceives you with sleight of hand,” it continues. “You will wonder how this is possible as he reads your mind. And you will fear for his safety as he has 40 seconds to escape from a 1,000-pound rack of falling spikes.”

Seeking to perform more consistently, Comis eventually moved to Orlando to find theme park work. He was hired at Universal Studios, where he’s been developing his skills with animatronics and more ever since.

“I work in technical services,” he explains, “and so I have different disciplines now than what I had beforehand with rigging; what’s okay, what’s not okay. When you have professional experience and you maintain respect for these things, your shows are going to be safe.”

Safety is paramount when you perform tricks called “The Table of Death.” Strapped down to its namesake, Comis has to escape before he’s impaled by lowering spikes.

“It’s crazy, because you do this trick on stage and you have to put a lot of work into making it seem dangerous,” he explains. “I think when people are sitting in the audience and they’re seeing something on the stage, they really just think it’s completely safe.”

Comis stresses that some of the real danger lies in the preparation.

“If you watch us assemble this prop, it’s almost more dangerous transporting and setting this thing up than it is actually doing it,” he says. “It takes four guys to lift it straight up in the air, and then there’s the rigging and back and forth with cables. There are a lot of things you can’t miss in order for it to be safe.”

It’s in “Nick’s Parlor Tricks” – Comis’ most recent show in Orlando – that the illusionist sought to combine the most successful elements of his Vegas and touring productions. Variations of his act were performed at numerous venues including Parliament House, the Orlando Fringe Festival and Sleuth’s Dinner Theater.

“When I went to Sleuth’s, that took me down to being a one-man show, just me and a table,” Comis says. “That was more intimidating than doing large-scale escapes because it was just me. It started off once a week, then it was twice and then I was doing four days. It made me a better performer.”

Comis worked at the theater for more than five years, a period which he credits for significant personal and professional growth. It was during that time that he began taking acting courses, another step to strengthen his rapport with audiences.

The experience introduced him to the Meisner Technique, the three tenets of which are emotional preparation, repetition and improvisation. The courses not only enhanced his presence onstage, though he laughs as he says he’s “still not a good actor,” the technique encouraged Comis to strengthen his authenticity under the spotlight.

Orlando’s Theater on the Edge and its Truthful Acting Studios also helped. The educational program stresses that “thinking has no place in acting. It is a matter of the heart.”

“Their definition of acting is living truthfully in an imaginary circumstance,” Comis says. “That’s what a magician does.”

While COVID-19 shutdowns prevented a planned expansion of “Nick’s Parlor Tricks,” Comis knows that when and wherever his show returns he’ll bring every aspect of himself.

“Being gay isn’t a part of my show, it’s not something I talk about,” he says. “But I’m not pretending to be someone that I’m not. My being out and being comfortable with who I am allows me to be honest with who I am onstage.

“If you’re worried about other issues, they’re going to get in the way,” Comis stresses. “You don’t have to pretend to be someone else in order to be good enough – living truthfully in imaginary circumstances, magicians want to do that too.”

Learn more about Nick Comis, “Nick’s Parlor Tricks,” future Central Florida shows and other performance opportunities by calling 702-203-1883, emailing NickComisIllusionist@Gmail.com or visiting NickComis.com.

PERFECT PAIR

When it comes to marriage, Chris and Ryan Zubrick know how to keep the magic alive. The illusionists-turned-husbands met in 2005 when they were double-booked for a show, said “I do” by 2013 and welcomed their son Oliver four years later.

Prior to fatherhood, the Michigan natives combined their acts and toured the U.S. together, an ideal scenario for the pair. Each of them brought their lifelong passion for magic to their newfound personal and professional partnership.

Ryan, 35, first fell in love with the craft at the age of six, when he received a magic set for his birthday from his grandparents. He was being paid for his ever-improving efforts by age 10.
“I was performing at banquets and family reunions, making $100 or $200,” he recalls. “It was a big deal at that age.”

Similarly, Chris discovered a magic trick in a box of cereal as a child. “That was the magic bug that bit me,” he says. The 39-year-old performer says even then, “I knew it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”

He now does so beside his husband. When the duo made the decision to merge their acts, he says, “we each had our own illusions independent of each other and it was easy to combine them.”

It was also “easy personality wise,” he notes. “I was doing more of the comedy magic, he was doing more of the manipulation classics of magic, if you will. We blended well together on stage and our shows did as well.”

Audiences agreed. The pair soon found themselves overseas, performing during a tenure that lasted 13 years and more than 7,500 shows. It began in Saipan, the U.S. commonwealth in the Western Pacific when they accepted a two-year contract.

That evolved into a seven and a half year stay before they were asked to move their act to a larger theater in nearby Guam. The subsequent residency lasted five years, and they performed for more than two million people before the pandemic shut the theater down in March of last year.

The closure created an opportunity for the Zubricks to find a new home – the newly remodeled Zubrick Magic Theatre in St. Petersburg, opening July 29. The 90-seat venue will offer their unique brand of illusion three days per week, with opportunities for private matinees and more.

“The Zubrick Magic Theatre is a sophisticated live entertainment venue and the performance is appropriate for people of all ages,” the venture is officially described. “An intimate and unforgettable evening of magical entertainment fits the bill for date night, an opportunity to escape reality with a group of friends or the chance to seek a mind-boggling activity the whole family can enjoy together.”

As for its content, audiences can expect the Zubricks to “conjure up an exhilarating blend of sleight-of-hand, family-friendly comedy and breathtaking grand-scale illusions in a 70-minute performance that captures the hearts and imaginations of multi-generational audiences.”

“It’s been a dream of ours to open a theater,” Chris says. “When you look at the word show business, business is the larger word; it takes the most effort. But the reward comes at night when we get to be on stage, finally perform and relax.”

“That’s the easy part,” Ryan muses. Less of a risk taker, he notes that while he took more convincing than his husband to open the space, “it really is so much more rewarding than working for another company.”

The process of finding the venue began on a cross-country tour that spanned 26 states. The Zubricks took a sabbatical during their time overseas and bought an RV to travel with their son from coast to coast.

“We stopped at all of the major tourist destinations to find our forever home,” Chris says. “When we came through and stopped in St. Pete, it just clicked. It checked all of our boxes.”

The area was a tourist destination, had great weather and was undoubtedly LGBTQ-friendly, he explains. “That was important because we wanted to raise our son in a place that was safe.”

“We really have just fallen in love with it,” Ryan says.

The Zubricks hope that audiences will fall in love with their show and the new space in return. Chris says that they intend to “keep it fresh, not only for our returning customers but also for ourselves. We also want to do seasonal shows to add in some holiday magic.”

“We have a decent repertoire of routines and illusions that we hope to rotate in and out,” Ryan adds. “We want to present as much as possible, not just come out and do 70 minutes of card tricks. We want you to experience the production value.”

The Zubricks worked diligently to ensure that the experience was everything they wanted for audiences. They assembled every chair in the theater while building the risers they sit upon and the stage they face.

They also hung the speakers and lighting, the latter of which was programmed by Ryan. The illusionist studied technical theater in college.

“When we took this on it was a concrete slab,” Chris reflects. “A four-wall concrete slab. But we just stood in here alone and envisioned how this would go.”

Or as Ryan notes – in true magical form – “we just pretended.”

“It’s been a labor of love,” Chris says. “This show is theatrical in nature. It’s experiential, not just a sit-and-watch show. The audience actively becomes a part of it. There’s comedy, there’s drama and there’s suspense.”

There are also large-scale illusions – but it’s the intimacy Ryan may be looking forward to the most.

“One of the things we weren’t able to do overseas is tell our stories,” he says. “Our audiences primarily spoke Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Russian, so we weren’t able to speak a lot during the shows because of language barriers. I’m craving this kind of experience.”

It’s an experience open to all, one led by two men who see the magic in sharing their truth. “We made a very conscious decision that we wanted to live authentically, primarily because we wanted our son to realize that he could live his life authentically,” Chris notes.

“This is the perfect time to open a theater and it’s a perfect time to come and see a magic show,” he continues. “It’s time to come and experience live entertainment together as a group. After a year like 2020, people need magic in their lives.”

Zubrick Magic Theatre opens July 29 at 1211 1st Ave. N., Ste. 101 in St. Petersburg. The Box office is open Thurs.-Sat., 6-8:30 p.m., and performances are held Thurs.-Sat. at 7 p.m. General admission for 4+ is $40 and VIP packages are available for $117. Tickets and additional details are available at ZubrickMagic.com.

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