A Prague-born performer who calls himself a “certified lunatic and master of the impossible” is bringing strong-man stunts, mass hypnosis and something billed as snake healings to Kahului next week. Tomáš Kubínek will perform his one-man show “Miracle Man” at 5 p.m. on October 11 inside the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s Castle Theater, and he is asking the audience to walk in with canned goods in hand.
The Maui Arts & Cultural Center announced the show, according to Maui Now, describing a 90-minute performance that folds couples counseling and physical comedy into the same evening as acrobatics and illusion. Tickets run $35, $45 and $55, with all taxes and fees included, and MACC members get a 10% discount. Prices climb on the day of the show, so early buyers at mauiarts.org get the better deal.
A Childhood Shaped by Flight and the Circus
Kubínek’s biography reads like its own kind of performance. Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, he and his family fled the 1968 Soviet invasion when he was just three years old, spending two months in an Austrian refugee camp before being granted asylum in Canada, according to WABE. He grew up in Canada and now lives in the United States, but the itinerant streak never left him. He attended his first circus performance at age five, had an entertainment agent signed on by 13, and spent his teenage years touring Europe to sharpen his physical comedy craft, the station reports.
That early apprenticeship turned into a career spanning more than 30 countries over three decades, with stops in London, Venice, Hong Kong, Brooklyn, Singapore, Florence, Tokyo, Lyon and New York City, per MACC. Along the way he’s appeared as a guest artist with symphony orchestras and picked up the Moers Comedy Prize from Germany’s International Comedy Arts Festival, the Schneestern Award from the International Festival of Humor in Arosa, Switzerland, and the Samuel Beckett Theatre Award from the Dublin Theatre Festival in Ireland, according to MACC. His solo shows have sold out London’s Purcell Theatre, Broadway’s New Victory Theater and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, CMI Entertainment notes.
Beyond the Stage: Classrooms and Correctional Facilities
Kubínek doesn’t limit himself to ticketed theater dates. He teaches master classes at universities and with professional theater companies, and conducts outreach programs at youth detention centers and correctional facilities, per MACC. CMI Entertainment adds that he also serves as an artist-in-residence with major arts centers, including the University of Iowa’s Hancher Auditorium, developing community-based creative projects that echo what he’ll be doing on Maui.
While in Kahului, Kubínek will perform separately for keiki as part of MACC’s school performance series during the academic year, a program that reflects the center’s 32-year commitment to arts education. That educational mission has deep roots: the Maui Arts & Cultural Center has maintained a partnership with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Hawaiʻi Department of Education for more than two decades, supporting teacher workshops and student field trips statewide.
A Donation Drive Tied to Maui’s Hunger Crisis
MACC is asking audience members to bring nonperishable items for the Maui Food Bank, supporting people affected by wildfires, hurricanes and floods, according to Maui Now’s reporting. Anyone who brings food or makes a monetary donation will be entered into a drawing for a signed show poster and a meet-and-greet with Kubínek himself.
The request lands at a fraught moment. A late 2025 statewide report found that 41% of Maui County households faced food insecurity, a 10-percentage-point jump from 2024 driven by lingering wildfire impacts and economic pressure, according to Honolulu Civil Beat. The Maui Food Bank itself distributed 6.7 million pounds of food during fiscal year 2026, delivering an average of 15,297 daily meals to more than 40,000 residents monthly across Maui, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi, with fresh produce making up 38% of what went out the door.
Folding a donation drive into a ticketed performance isn’t new territory for MACC. The center regularly builds Maui Food Bank collection into its community programming, including its free Starry Night Cinema events, treating charitable relief as a standard part of its operations rather than a one-off gesture. The venue itself is built to handle a crowd this size: Castle Theater seats 1,185 across orchestra, mezzanine and balcony tiers, with room for up to 1,297 when standing-room tickets are sold, and features acoustic African mahogany paneling and an adjustable orchestra pit.
MACC’s Castle Theater has hosted other notable touring acts recently, including a Broadway star’s holiday concert with the Maui Pops last December. For now, the spotlight turns to a performer who has spent a lifetime turning displacement and physical comedy into a singular stage act, with Maui’s hungriest households standing to benefit from whatever audiences carry through the door.
