EVENTS

Mental magic at the Paramount

By Geoff West
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, May 01, 2009

Mike Supernovich's mother started worrying when she pulled up to her middle-class house in Pittsburgh one Tuesday and saw neighbors in the yard.

Her children!

She jumped out of her car and ran inside, thinking the worst.

But her children were fine — in fact, her little boy was happier than ever, standing in front of the neighborhood wearing his Halloween Dracula cape and holding a deck of cards.

"What's going on here?" the performer remembers his mother saying. "Totally interrupting my show by the way."

A neighbor chimed in. "Oh, well it's 'Tuesday Magic'," the adult said. "Mike does this every week."

The young boy — now known as Mike Super, 32, and recent winner of NBC's prime-time TV show "Phenomenon" — told his mother he had been performing his magic for months, charging a nickel for admission. The neighbors loved it; his mother wasn't so sure.

"She made me give back all the nickels that day," he says with a chuckle. (She eventually let him continue after talking with the neighbors.)

Today, he might refund more than nickels.

A few weeks ago, Super mailed a FedEx envelope to the Paramount Theatre in anticipation of shows today and Saturday. Inside were a cassette tape and a piece of paper, signed and dated.

For his first trick, Super has predicted Friday's headline on the American-Statesman's front page.

The sealed envelope is now atop the Paramount Theatre marquee under lock-and-key inside a newspaper vending machine, visible from the street. At 1:30 p.m.Friday, the American-Statesman and Paramount Theatre will open the envelope in front of the theater joined by Bridget and Carey from Mix 94.7. Super plans to be there, too.

The stakes? If Super is wrong, he'll refund any ticket purchased before today.

Super has pulled it off before — no thanks to editors.

"I've had editors try to mess me up," he says by phone from his hometown. "I've had editors say, 'Here's what the headline's going to say' and literally, two minutes before they went to press, switch it up."

One newspaper even published half of the headline to throw him off. But he was right again — and good thing, too. The refund bill for Paramount guests would run more than $60,000, according to seat prices and ticket sales. Of course, this clairvoyance doesn't come without a civic duty, he says.

"If I predict, 'World is Going to End! North Korea Fires Nukes!', trust me, I'll say something," he says.

Friday and Saturday, he will levitate an audience member, make another disappear and control another's body.

"It's unbelievable and as freaky as it sounds, but it's all family-friendly," he says.

The shows are always family-friendly — with illusions mystifying the mind but always embedded within a lighted-hearted, charming accessibility loved by the Disney crowd.

Super's career took off after winning the NBC show "Phenomenon," a competition between 10 illusionists competing for a $250,000 grand prize. More than 8 million people watched the show, and the winner was selected by viewers.

He's been packing houses ever since.

It's not all smoke-and-mirrors at a Mike Super show. Audiences are sometimes even in tears — especially during the finale, which includes a touching tribute to his mother.

"I've had grown football players, 350 pound linebackers come up with a tear in their eye and say, 'You know what man, you made me remember (a loved one)," he says. "That's always a great compliment to get. To know you touched someone on an emotional level."

Super has gone from a cape-wearing 6-year-old boy who once fooled neighbors in his backyard with a toothpick, handkerchief and a deck of cards to a nationally renowned, prime-time-TV-starring magician hailed by many as the next-great illusionist. He says one of his tricks pales next to all others — "being able to do magic for a living," he says.

His mother would be proud — especially of the nickels he?s earned. Will he lose them today? Come see.

Mike Super performs at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Paramount Theatre, 713 Congress Ave. $23-$50. 866-443-8849, www.austintheatre.org.