Greetings Magic Café friends!

I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself as a registered user for the first time. My name is Michael John Sannicandro & I’ve been a long time “lurker” here as well as on many other forums that no longer exist I.e. Ellusionist, etc. I used to work for E as a CSR while I was in college & they sent me to Sorcerers Safari magic camp for the first time when I graduated in 2012. I’ve been performing magic since I was 7 years old - I’m 34 now. Magic has and always will be my “personal legend”, my passion in life. I first got into magic when I received a “Magic science” kit from my aunt Margie and I was bit with the bug, as it were…as DB put it so elegantly, “you don’t get into magic, Magic gets into you.”

In 2001 at age 13, I received HTDSM from E after learning of David Blaine online, an Xmas gift from my father. I became obsessed with the art and immersed myself in any and every way that I could. I started doing magic in school for my peers at around 8th grade. I bought David’s book mysterious stranger and read it every day after school, sometimes during school, even during one Saturday detention I had for being late one too many times.

I made the varsity baseball team as a sophomore in H.S. & continued performing magic for my classmates as well as my teammates on the buses to our games, in the locker room, in the Caféteria at break and lunch, sometimes during class etc. We won the state championship that year and to this day teammates point to how much fun the magic was for us all, and credited our relaxed and care-free nature having fun with magic and listening to country music to winning State that year. The following year DB came out with Drowned alive, and this further deepened my love of our craft. I continue learning, studying, & developing as a performer.

I should mention that I was teased a lot in h.s. school for being in some special Ed classes, but magic really helped me deal with that difficult time in my youth. For these related reasons, I lurked on the E forums for years and years but never posted once, until today. After graduating high school, I was recruited to play baseball at a college in CT, but I was too homesick and left after a few days. I took that year off studying magic and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t perform during that year off in 2008, but again was constantly learning and studying magic. I decided to go back to college closer to home and played baseball there as well.

Those 4 years is where I really started performing a lot on campus and was much of my college in magic. Upon graduation, I received a book from one of my favorite professor called The Alchemist - he encouraged me to pursue my passion for magic and I did. In lieu of graduate school, I pursued magic. I started doing magic at local bars, restaurants, clubs, etc building my chops and honing my craft. I started rubbing shoulders with professional athletes like the New England patriots etc around my town in bars etc. After 2 years at sorcerers safari and spending much time in Canada meeting many new Magic friends and having amazing experiences while working out constantly, I began to pursue modeling after signing with a local Boston agency and was selected as a finalist on The Price Is Right male model search in 2014.

Of course, I did magic on this show and for all of my fellow model finalists in LA, my first time in that city. I made the small town farm boy, naive mistake of deciding to stay in LA after the competition to try to “make it” in magic. I ended up sleeping out of an Escalade and couch surfing and working commercials, using magic as my beacon to meet new people, agents etc and survive. It wasn’t long before I learned of the types of sharks that exist in the world. I needed to leave LA, as I was in over my head. I continued pursuing magic while submitting to various TV shows, hungry to prove myself.

One of those shows was AGT & I premiered on season 10 in 2015. It was an innocent time for me. It was my first time on a stage other than magic camp, & at just 25 years old, I was just following my heart. I felt I was put on this earth to give people the gift of magic. I learned a lot of lessons from being featured on that show. The next year I filmed Penn & Teller Fool Us, but my episode did not air. I then began performing on the college circuit, private & corporate shows etc, met the love of my life and moved back to LA for a time before we moved to hawaii. I began performing a lot on Oahu, all around Waikiki etc, all over the island. Our first son was born there and we eventually moved off the island after a year and I began modeling again. I signed to the top agencies in the world from Wilhelmina, to Next Models. I began working a lot in nyc and appeared on many romance novel covers, did stand in work for Chris Hemsworth, etc. Then I performed on Tu Si Que Vales in 2018 in Italy, where I got to meet some of my family and they showed me around Rome.

The pandemic hit on a move to Cali so we decided to stay in Vegas, where our second son was born. We lived there for 3 years before I got a residency at Dream Hotel Nashville that moved us to TN from Vegas. I performed this theater show for some time before starting on cruise ships, which I now do in addition to colleges. This is a very small nutshell and if you’ve read this far, I realize this is some diatribe…but then, I do have many years of lurking to make up for, now don’t I? I have an exciting project you will all know about within the year, my “mic drop” into the world of magic creators, which I cannot speak on, but I’m excited for you all to see it. I took Nate Staniforth’s “Designing the Impossible Course” and this was a revelation for me, as creating has always been my largest goal in magic. I’m now pursuing acting as well, repped by KMR Talent for theatrical/commercial, Select Model Mgmt, Blackburn Intl for cruises and Metropolis Mgmt for colleges.

You can find me on socials: Instagram & TikTok @michaeljohnauthentic Twitter @michaeljohnauth

I look forward very much to corresponding with and getting to know each and every one of you as best I can.

I digress, for now. Onward!

Warmest,

Wow,
You have lived quite the life. Thanks for the story, maybe this will motivate others (yes, and myself) to get out of the chair and put ourselves out there.



Dave