America already knows he’s “Got Talent.” A new mini-documentary is now showing how one Queens magician has helped a pair of local tricksters and countless others through his shop.
“The Magic Man,” a six-minute film recently released on YouTube as part of Bacardi’s The Untameable Series, features Rogue Magic and Funshop on Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst.
The store is owned by 35-year-old Briarwood magician Roger “Rogue” Quan who appeared on the July 1 episode of “America’s Got Talent,” and also owns Rogue Magic Bar & Theatre in Rego Park.
Quan opened the store in 2000, and in addition to selling tricks, the business became like a sanctuary for local youngsters.
“I pushed these kids. If they needed money, needed a place to stay,” Quan said, he helped them out. “I created another family and they helped me out.”
Two of those people’s stories are the focus of “The Magic Man” — Ridgewood resident Michael “Six” Muldoon and Brooklyn native Devonte Rosero.
Both men have made careers out of magic after dealing with personal struggles.
At a young age, Muldoon, now 25, coped with having a sixth finger and weight issues. His Maspeth house burned down when he was 11 and his parents separated around that time.
Muldoon found magic at about age 13, and bought his first trick from Quan’s store.
“It kind of became an addiction after that,” said Muldoon, who eventually started working at the shop.
Quan not only helped give Muldoon the confidence he needed, but also his stage name — ”Six.”
“He gave us a place to connect, to be open, to find ourselves,” Muldoon said.
After Muldoon nearly died from a ruptured spleen at 18, and was looking to give back, Rosero, who had just met the founder of Magicians Without Borders, suggested that Muldoon work with the organization.
Today, the two are still involved with the group, which travels to more than 30 countries “using magic to entertain, educate and empower.”
They also both started System 6 Magic, a company that produces playing cards and DVDs, and have each become accomplished performers and entrepreneurs.
Though he became interested in magic at an early age, in his teen years Rosero, now 24, started associating with local street gangs.
After landing in the hospital, Rosero received a call from Quan, whose shop he used to go to four or five years earlier, urging him to try out for a magic competition, he recalls in “The Magic Man.”
“If Rouge had not called me, I would be in jail or dead,” Rosero said.
The mini-documentary is not the first time Quan’s magic shop and some of the people it’s helped have been captured on film.
A full-length documentary called “The Magic Men,” featuring Rosero and another local magician, Miles Thorn, was screened at the Woodstock Film Festival in 2013. The film’s producer is trying to get it distributed for full release in New York City, according to Quan. He believes it may have been the reason the filmmakers behind the Bacardi piece came calling.
The aim of the Bacardi series is to tell “remarkable stories of irrepressible spirits from around the world.”
Some of that spirit is summed up in how Quan answers the question about why he does what he does in the documentary.
“Why do I do it? Because I want people to believe. That’s what magic’s all about.”
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