After a four year residency at à toi, the sophisticated speakeasy style cocktail lounge on Toronto's King Street West, a new concept in close-up magic is created.
Gambling Sensations
A one hour theatrical experience in sleight-of-hand, magic and deception. Witness a demonstration of supernatural powers as the ultra eccentric card sharp works his way up through an underground world of rogues, hustlers and players, preparing for the ultimate challenge. A seat at one of the most extravagant, expensive and dangerous high-stakes poker games in the country.
Gambling Sensations is available exclusively for private performances, offering a select audience the rare opportunity to experience this extraordinary world up close.
Plans are also underway to bring Gambling Sensations to the public in an intimate theatrical setting, where the stakes are high, the atmosphere is electric and fortunes will be won.
The search is on for the perfect venue.
Enquiries for private performances and prospective venue partnerships are warmly welcomed.
It All Started With 3 Cards
When I was a kid, on a family trip to New York, I came across a street hustler in Manhattan working the three-card monte on top of two cardboard boxes.
I was mesmerized.
I watched the cards. I watched the people. And I watched the money change hands, thinking, That's where the money is.
I had no idea at the time, but those three cards would begin a fascination with magic, sleight of hand and the art of deception that has lasted more than thirty years.
Back home in Toronto, I found a magic shop and became obsessed with learning everything I could. By twelve, I had performed my first magic show.
Through high school, I performed children’s shows on weekends, studied drama and experimented with everything from juggling and ventriloquism to mime and comedy.
Magic became part of who I was, but some of my most valuable education happened outside of magic.
In my twenties, I worked in the corporate world producing elaborate multimedia presentations for annual meetings and IPO roadshows. We worked directly with CEOs, senior executives and investment bankers, travelling across Canada and occasionally to the United States and Europe.
It taught me something I still bring to every corporate event today:
Professionalism matters. Details matter. And when people trust you with an important event, you have to overdeliver.
Eventually, magic called again.
I left the corporate world and travelled, performing wherever opportunity and serendipity took me—from a beach in Thailand and a restaurant in India to an unlikely residency performing sleight-of-hand magic every night in a hostess bar in Tokyo.
I wasn't Lost in Translation. Magic is universal.
That became one of the most important lessons of my career: great close-up magic isn't just about tricks. It's about people.
Over the years, I've performed at weddings, private parties, corporate events and some extraordinary venues. I held a monthly close-up show on Bloor Street for more than seven years, worked busy holiday event seasons and performed alongside some exceptionally accomplished magicians.
Then the phone rang and a voice on the other end asked if I could perform that night at a lounge in downtown Toronto.
That one phone call turned into a four-year residency at a chic, hidden Toronto speakeasy filled with talented performance artists and savvy hospitality professionals.
Almost every week, I performed five hours a night for small groups in an intimate secret room.
Five hours a night... Week after week.
Thousands of hours performing close-up magic over more than 30 years have given me an instinct and intuition that aren't easily acquired.
How to read a room.
How to know who wants to participate and who doesn't.
How to approach a group without interrupting the conversation.
How to draw a quieter guest into the experience.
How to leave at exactly the right moment.
The magic must feel as though it belongs at the event.
Today, when you invite me to yours, you're getting more than just the study and practice of magic.
You're getting a lifetime of connecting with people, and a deep understanding of performance, hospitality, timing and presentation—the little details that turn an interesting trick into an unforgettable shared experience.
Because my job isn't simply to make your guests wonder how something was done.
It's to make sure we have the most wonderful time believing everything is possible.
