Magic.
It’s tucked into a strip mall off Garden of the Gods Road. Victorian couches. Antique end tables. Pressed tin ceilings. Chandeliers. Vintage posters of great magicians.
Cosmo’s Magic Theater is the real deal. Owner Cosmo Solano has been doing magic since he was in kindergarten. He studied at the prestigious Chavez College of Magic and eventually became one of the busiest private event magicians in Los Angeles.
After performing for about two decades for celebrities, dignitaries and major corporations, he returned to his home state of Colorado to raise his family.
The Evolution of Cosmo’s
Back in Colorado, he eventually met up with an old friend, wrote a new magic show and booked the Pink House at Eyrie Castle for an intimate magic show with 10 people. That sold out, as did similar shows at other venues and he decided to make it a regular thing, turning his dining room into a magic room for performances called “The 10.”
After a couple of years, he needed more space and opened a theater in Colorado Springs. He was playing to a packed house. Then… the pandemic struck, shuttering the theater. Like other business owners, Cosmo thought it would be a short closure. But as weeks turned into months, Cosmo and his wife donated the furnishings to charity and closed for good.
“We did not think we were going to reopen,” he said.
But 455 days later, with the help of business incentives and arts grants, Cosmo’s Magic Theater reappeared in June 2021 in a new northside location.
“We hit the ground running,” Cosmo said. “We have an amazing following of people who keep coming back.”
Close-Up Magic
Walk through the door from the ornate parlor, down a hallway and into a charming, 34-seat theater designed pro bono by friend Jack Hart. The Emmy-nominated set designer has worked on The Price is Right, Family Feud and several David Copperfield TV specials.
This space is where Cosmo performs his “close-up magic,” using traditional props like dice, cards and cups and balls on a small, green-fabric-covered table down front. He takes it slow, making sure no one feels “tricked,” but rather entertained, an approach influenced by Dai Vernon, a magician nicknamed “The Professor” – Cosmo’s hero as a child and mentor as an adult.
As Cosmo works his way through the show, there is silence, laughter, clapping and awe. His sleight-of-hand tricks and mentalism stump everyone in the theater. Just when people think they have it figured out, they realize they don't.
“Don’t be in an analytical mind. … Chill out and try to stop figuring it out,” he said, adding that it’s his job to make the audience feel comfortable enough to want to be fooled.
Magic, he said, isn't a puzzle. It's a form of entertainment. And performing in front of a live audience? It's risky.
"It's the real deal," he said. "You can't go back and edit it."
Website: https://www.cosmosmagictheater.com/
Facebook + Instagram: @cosmosmagictheater
