Learn Italian: Il pubblico applaude molto, ma il mago è stanco. - The audience applauds a lot, but the magician is tired.

In Italian, collective nouns like il pubblico (the audience), la gente (people), or la famiglia (the family) are grammatically singular. You must always use a singular verb with them, even though they refer to a group of individuals.

Is applaude conjugated like a regular -ire verb?

Yes, it comes from the verb applaudire. However, applaudire is unique because it can be conjugated two ways in the present tense: like a standard -ire verb (lui applaude) or with the -isc- pattern (lui applaudisce). Both are perfectly correct and common!

Why does molto stay in its default masculine singular form here?

In this sentence, molto means 'a lot' and acts as an adverb describing how much they applaud. Adverbs never change their endings. If it were an adjective describing a noun, like 'many magicians' (molti maghi), it would change its ending to match the noun's gender and number.

How would you say 'the magicians are tired' if there were more than one?

You would say i maghi sono stanchi. Words ending in -go and -co usually add an h in their plural forms to keep the hard consonant sound before the letter i.