The venue that houses Illusion Magic Lounge in Santa Monica, California, has been a home to magic for decades. In 1998, Steve Spill and his wife Bozena opened Magicopolis, which they ran for 20 years before Randy Sinnott Sr. went to a show one night.
“After the show, Steve grabbed me by the elbow and said, ‘Hey, you got a minute?’” Randy told Genii. “I said, ‘Sure.’ And he said, ‘Bozena and I are thinking about retiring to Hawaii. We’d like to keep it as a magic venue, as opposed to a restaurant or a furniture store or something else. It’s a big place.’”
Randy thought about it, and decided to move forward with his son, Randy Sinnott Jr. And in August 2019, a year and a half after Steve first broached the subject, the Sinnotts took over ownership.
Soon after, the pandemic happened. The venue, which they had just rebranded as Illusion Magic Lounge, shut down along with the rest of the world. In May 2020, it was also broken into and looted during the protests following the murder of George Floyd.
The shutdown and the damage to the space gave the Sinnotts an opportunity to rethink the look and feel of the 150-seat theater. “It took us quite some time to figure out what to do next,” Randy Jr. said. “[My wife] Lizzie and I looked at other venues, but we didn’t want to just copy another style…. Santa Monica is an oceanfront town—we’re literally four blocks from the beach, so we wanted to have a coastal feel. And we’re in the central structure, one of the oldest in Santa Monica. [It has] Art Deco themes since the building itself is from the 1920s, so we brought that in, too.”
An Evening of Magic
The renovated Illusion Magic Lounge reopened in December 2022. Since then, it’s held magic shows most Friday and Saturday nights, with other nights of the week seeing everything from comedy shows to plays using the space. After the Los Angeles fires this winter, Palisades Charter High School has also been using Illusion Magic Lounge as their theater.
On magic nights, Illusion opens at 5 p.m., giving guests ample time before the 7:30 p.m. theatrical show to order drinks and small plates while a strolling magician goes from table to table. When the crowd gets big enough, that same magician guides guests into an adjacent close-up room for a performance before they’re ushered into the main theater, where they’ll sit down to enjoy a 90-minute show.
That 90-minute show is usually two acts performing a 45-minute set each. “Most of them are Magic Castle headliners, though we look for young and up-and-coming [performers who are] a little bit off the mainstream, to give people variety,” said Randy Sr.
“I like to invite people to try to be ambitious and try something new or something that they’re still working on,” added Randy Jr. “I would rather see someone take a big swing and try something new than have them phone in an act they’ve done 100 times.”
A Place to Congregate
It’s been almost three years since Illusion Magic Lounge’s reopening, and the Sinnotts say that the venue has started to become a gathering place for magicians. “We’ve started to have the word get out enough, that if people have a gig on the Westside, they come out, say, an hour early and hang out,” said Randy Sr.
And the Sinnotts not only love being a place for magicians and other variety acts to host events, such as the Mystify show they hosted in May, they also want magicians and dedicated magic fans, aka Genii readers, to be in the audience. To that end, they’re offering Genii readers a reduced ticket price—use the code GENII when ordering online and access $10 general admission tickets for a great night of magic! Enjoy!
Photos by Art Ruffin and Edwin Palacios
Illusion Magic Lounge
Visit this Santa Monica bar and theater featuring a rotating roster of world-class magician, comedians, and variety artists in a beautiful and historic 150-seat venue. GENII READERS use discount code and save!