Hey, I'm Antonia Cérejido, the host of Imperfect Paradise from LAa Studios, the show about

hidden worlds and messy realities.

This week on Imperfect Paradise, the first of our four-part series, The Castle.

The Magic Castle is a club for Magicians.

It sits on a little hill above Hollywood, looking like it's straight up out of a fairy tale. The thing that makes the castle so special

is that you can't just show up. You have to be invited. I've driven past it many times,

wondering who's in there? What's going on behind the stained glass

windows what's it like to be inside of this members only club this story pulls back the curtain to a world that many describe as stuck in time and gives

you a front row seat to what happened in 2020 when the castle, like so many institutions, had to

confront its problematic past.

It felt like you were back in time in a place where like almost everyone there's an older white

cis heterosexual man. It's their world that you're stepping into.

The magician is a guy in a tux

and a woman on stage is the individual who gets sawn

in half, split apart, and lit on fire.

And he was like, the little lady doesn't do any magic.

And then when I started my show, he just left.

It took 10 months of us meeting

before we were able to make any sort of public statement.

I was propelled by my own pettiness, my own stubbornness, and my hours and hours of preparation,

so I was like, here we go.

Here's Alaeus, senior producer Natalie Chidovsky. I want you to meet Carly.

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