Magician, singer coming to Richey Suncoast Theatre

Some of David Evangelista's best childhood memories are watching magician Doug Henning on television and playing with a deck of trick cards given to him by his late grandparents, Nora and Lawrence Glindizzi, in New York.

By the time he reached his teens, Evangelista knew he wanted to spend his life as a magician-illusionist. In the more than three decades since, he has written magic books, invented magic tricks, and given lectures and shows on magic at conventions, corporate gatherings, magic clubs and theaters.

On Wednesday, Evangelista and his wife, Cheri, will give a show at Richey Suncoast Theatre.

"This show is a combination of something I have been working on," Evangelista said on the phone from his home in River Ridge. "It is a look back at the ways magic was performed in the 1900s, but with today's magic technology incorporated. It'll incorporate lots of animals in the routine, several done to music.

"My wife (Cheri) is a professional vocalist, and she'll do the old standards in this show," he said. "We want comedy, audience participation and a big surprise at the end."

Evangelista sells many of the tricks he has invented through his wife's 7-year-old company, Visual Magic. That's often how people from across the United States find him to do shows.

"I've been trying to stay pretty close to home recently," he said. Two reasons are daughters Angela, 18, and Jessica, 15. Another is that it gives him time to prepare for a 15-week tour of Italy about two years hence, when he's booked to give shows in several cities and towns.

"I have always wanted to do this," he said. "I had an opportunity several years ago, and I couldn't, but I can now."

Meanwhile, he has been working with several top magicians (some confidentially), teaching them new tricks and illusions, and also doing special effects used in the popular stage show River Dance.

One of his most exciting moments came a decade ago, when he got a phone call from a man who said he was Doug Henning.

"I thought it was some kind of joke," Evangelista said, "so I called Magic Magazine and said, 'This guy called me and said he was Doug Henning.' "

The phone number the caller had given Evangelista didn't match the phone number Magic Magazine had on file for him.

"It turns out that they had his office number, and I had his home number," Evangelista said. In the following months, he and Henning had several half-hour phone conversations, which continued until shortly before the famed magician's death in February 2000.

"Just to talk with him was a real thrill for me," Evangelista said.