Since May, magic duo Kaileigh and Chase Hasty have been performing at The White Rabbit at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno. In less than a year, they have already cleared their 250th show. The venue comes from the same team that runs The Loft in South Lake Tahoe, but unlike that venue, The White Rabbit has Kaileigh and Chase in residency year-round, allowing them to develop a show with big illusion set pieces.
Creating The White Rabbit took time. The search for a location started back in 2023, and after false starts in Key West and New Orleans, the team turned to the theater space at the Grand Sierra Resort. “Kaileigh and I were on a cruise ship in the middle of the Mediterranean, and we didn’t have much experience with Reno, other than being close by working in Tahoe, but looked at it online and honestly just fell in love with the property,” Chase told The Eye.
The deal in Reno went through, and the two had the opportunity to design the space, which was previously a two-screen movie theater, to their liking. “At the time, we were on the ship, and we were taking a tape measure and going into the theater there and deciding how tall, wide, and deep we wanted The White Rabbit stage to be,” Kaileigh said.
They pitched the design to the investors, and got almost everything they asked for. “We couldn’t believe it,” said Chase. “They gave us the trap doors, the secret hallways, the green rooms, everything.”
Construction began, and on May 3, 2025, the 245-seat theater opened. Chase and Kaileigh usually perform every day and have two 90-minute shows, an all-ages one called That’s Magic! that they run daily, and an 18-plus one called Nocturnal that runs on Friday and Saturday nights. They both perform magic. Kaileigh is also a trained ballerina and aerialist, and two other dancers join them onstage. The venue also has a close-up table in the lounge outside it, and local magician Erik Casey performs there most evenings.
“Putting the suitcases away and having a residency where we can make it as big as possible and not have to worry about picking up and moving has been really liberating,” Kaileigh said. “And being able to choreograph and have dance numbers and a cast that also has their hearts in it has been just completely different than anything we’ve done before this. So for me, that’s been a game changer.”
Playing at the Grand Sierra Resort was also a thrill for Chase, as it’s the same space where Mark and Ginger Kalin performed Carnival of Wonders. Ginger, in fact, also consulted on their act.
The name for their version of theater, however, was inspired by Chase and Kaileigh’s 7-year-old white rabbit, Daisy. The two got the rabbit when they were living in Guam, and it has been part of their journey ever since.
Photos courtesy of The White Rabbit media team