“A.R.T. has embraced this year of disruption as an opportunity for digital experimentation, innovation, and learning about how we can continue to be creative, collaborate with artists, and engage our audiences,” said Diane Paulus, the A.R.T.’s Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director. “Digital experiences will never replace in-person theater, but I strongly believe they are not going away. The digital corollary to our in-person theater work is a vital opportunity to reach new audiences around the world, and, most significantly, to provide greater access to theater.”

Key to “The Conjurors’ Club,” say its creators, is that the show, though online, happens in real time. During each performance the audience will witness live magic, performed by magicians in different virtual rooms — the online equivalent of that elevator or the space beneath the stage. Seated before a home screen, the audience will watch, and participate in, each performer’s act, viewing the same card tricks and sleight-of-hand they would see at an in-person theater. As the night progresses, the audience will move onto another online “room” and another performer. “Every night you’ll experience three different magicians,” explained Kanick. “It’s like speed dating, so you get a chance to see that there are many flavors of magic.”

To best replicate that feeling of a “real” in-person show, each magician will work in front of a single camera. That fixed point of view, explain the conjurors, best approximates the experience of being in the audience of a live magic show. “We wanted to make this the most analog digital experience possible,” said Kanick. “We don’t use any camera tricks. It is as if you were sitting across the table from these magicians.”

“Magic works so well in person because you’re in the same room, where you know the rules,” added DePonto. “We want to recreate that. We want to build the trust, the rapport with our audience that says that you can be in the room with us.”

“We are very excited about giving audience agency,” Kanick continued. “Like, when you’re watching the show, you are talking to the magicians. You’re interacting. You are doing things. You’re making choices.”

That interaction will aided by the “secret package” that comes with each ticket, the contents of which the magicians are unwilling to divulge. “Mystery is an important element of magic, and I think that this is a good mystery,” said Kanick. “But I would add that we hope that people get to do stuff during the show, but also that it inspires them to dig deeper on their own after the show as well.

“Magic reaches through the screen in a really beautiful way, and if we can enhance that by having some objects or magic happening in your home, that’s also really exciting,” he added.

“This idea that magic happens all around you is what we’re aiming for,” said DePonto. Making that magic possible in this difficult time has been a challenge, both admit. It has also been, in some ways, enlightening, noted DePonto. “When we get back into a space where we can gather, we’re going to have taken away so much from this virtual space that we can apply,” he said. “I’m actually really excited to figure out what the next version of this show is.”

Already, these new possibilities have begun to weave their spell. “During one of the developmental shows we had someone in L.A., we had a magician in Chicago, someone tuned in from Ireland, and we all got to, like, share in these moments together from all over,” said Kanick. “That was real magic for me.”

For more information about the “The Conjurors’ Club,” “Behind the Scenes” series, A.R.T. Travels,  Virtually Oberon, and the weekly Lunch Room talks visit the A.R.T. website.