- Hello, I'm Beth Macmillan and welcome to "ARTEFFECTS."

In the corner of Keystone Square in Reno lives a building with deep history known as The Theater.

This is the home of Magique, a big show featuring magnificent costumes and grand illusions.

The magicians are also the theater's owners.

They renovated the entire space and built it into the venue it is today.

They found a way to take their large show, which played in casinos and cruise ships, and put it onto a limited stage without losing any of the show's, well, magic.

(funky music) - Magique is a big production show.

We have 20 illusions, seven showgirls, over a hundred costumes, pyrotechnics, lasers, lighting, video effects.

It really is a show of grand finale.

We really give an experience of a lifetime here.

(gentle music) So I'm Kevin and this is Lord Caruso.

We're the magicians in Magique.

Caruso is the mysterious one.

He's the one that levitates and makes the girls disappear and cuts them in half.

I'm more the fun one.

I engage with the audience.

I do a little audience participation and a lot of times we work very well together 'cause we're so exactly the opposite on stage.

Magique is our life's work.

We started here in Reno as street performers back in the early '90s.

Of course, COVID knocked everything out for all entertainers.

We actually started delivering food with Uber Eats and happened to pick up food next door here to the Indian restaurant.

Drove by this theater and saw it was for lease.

We had two months to remodel this place and Caruso and I did it ourself.

We did everything from the floors to the walls.

We installed all the theatrical equipment.

As it turns out it's the best thing we ever did.

When we finally opened Magique here it really was the highlight of our career to fit our big show in such an intimate venue.

(upbeat music) The challenge about the show we're doing here in particular was twofold.

One, we were very adamant about not wanting to cut anything from our show that we've been doing.

And we did open a little late, but it's true we didn't cut anything.

The show we're presenting here is exactly the same that we did on the big huge stages at the casinos and performing art centers.

The difference is this room is so much smaller and it's basically surrounded.

So all the illusions had to be rethought so they could be performed with people looking behind them, with people looking down on them.

To design a new illusion for a space like this is a lot different than designing an illusion for a giant stage or an arena, or even designing an illusion that's meant to be shown on TV.

We don't do a lot of closeup magic in this show.

There's not a lot of card tricks or small sleight of hand.

We are more into the grand illusions because then we can bring all our cast out in their costumes and add different layers to the magic itself.

So the way we design illusions might be different from other magicians because we have a lot of other elements to play with and a lot of times those are the things that we think about.

And then the illusion that nicely fits in with that.

(audience cheering and applauding) Everything in this show is one-of-a-kind handmade.

Some of our illusions are classic, but we even had those redesigned whether it's the actual physical design, or the way we perform it.

So everything is very unique, every costume in our show, and we have well over a hundred costumes in our show here at The Theater, every one of them was handmade by Lord Caruso.

He takes a lot of pride in making sure that the costumes are in perfect condition for every performance.

This show runs 100% automated.

We don't have a lighting or sound technician at all.

I press enter on a laptop before the show starts and everything runs automatically.

I write the soundtrack myself.

Everything in the show is custom edited so it fits perfectly with what we're doing on stage.

There's over 1,500 lighting cues and video and laser cues in the show that are precisely executed.

I programmed all that myself.

That was quite a challenge considering the same show that we do here when we did it in the casinos took a minimum of 12 stagehands and technicians.

Sometimes if it was Union up to 40, and here we're doing the exact same show really and we have no technicians at all and just one stagehand who pulls the curtains and moves the props and helps us all backstage.

When the audience watches our show, I'd like to think that they're entertained long before they're deceived.

Our goal isn't to deceive anyone.

The magic is meant to spark imagination and have you spend a little time thinking about what's possible and what's not possible, and incorporate those ideas into your own life not with an illusion on stage, but just the way you approach other things.

Even if it's just the fact that they saw that a couple guys from Reno has turned this into their life's work and career, I hope that inspires the next generation because it certainly can't end with us.

It's all designed to reach different elements of people's imagination.

If you're not really into the magic than we have all the razzmatazz and the costumes.

There's just so many things in our show to get people to forget about what's going on in their world for an hour and a half and really absorb something unique.

(audience cheering and applauding) - [Narrator] Funding for "ARTEFFECTS" is made possible by Sandy Raffealli with Bill Pearce Motors.

Meg and Dillard Myers.

Heidemarie Rochlin.

In memory of Sue McDowell, and by the annual contributions of PBS Reno members.

(upbeat jazz music)