Gary Conrad

If the thought of watching your brother-in-law quack like a duck or your co-worker act like the latest teen pop sensation makes you smile, catch comedy-hypnotist Gary Conrad this week. Shedding the term ‘hypnotist’ of its serious context and giving the practice a wild and whacky twist, comedy-hypnotist. Conrad is sure to make you rethink the traditional uses of hypnotism.
Pulling volunteers from the audience, Conrad taps into the mind of each participant and curates one heck of a show with his mind-bending capabilities. “I ask for volunteers at the beginning of the show and they either run onstage or have to be coaxed on stage,” said Conrad. “At a show in Savannah, this father gave his daughter $50 to go onstage and I made her pretend to be her father who was disappointed in his daughter. She ended up looking at her father in the audience and saying ‘Stella, I told you to stop looking for men on the internet.’”
Having appeared on TV shows including The View, Conrad’s comedy career spans years of live shows across the country and countless mesmerized participants. “Hypnosis is not dangerous and you don’t need a license to practice it. It really has a lot to do with behavioral modification and what each volunteer brings to the stage. The youngest person I’ve hypnotized was five years old with the oldest was 80 years old. It’s amazing what people will do onstage,” added Conrad.
“There are perks for volunteering to be on stage as well,” explained Conrad. “Each volunteer is actually learning how to enter the hypnosis state, which makes it easier for each participant to enter that state at a later date. A lot of people use hypnosis for losing weight or to quit smoking, so there is a bit of a payoff for being an on stage volunteer.”
Whether it’s to get a kick out of watching people shed their inhibitions on stage or for your chance to be hypnotized by a professional, Conrad’s performance are not to be missed. “It’s a lotta fun and high energy and I’m always surprised at what can come out of a regular human being. It’s a labor of love and I’m looking forward to performing in Corpus Christi,” said Conrad.