Smoke gets in your eyes

Oh my dear dear blog, it is at moments like the one I had earlier today that I wish I had a little camera or thought to take pictures during some of the hilarious and strange events that seem to envelop me. So for Rules and Regs I will be attempting to pull all the post apocalyptic stops, and my lovely tech at BAC had an idea of a way to really wow the audience - a smoke machine. He turned it on to let it heat up, and then we went downstairs to play with the lighting in the slightly fascist bunker in the basement. When what should happen, but Greg, the tech, is radio-ed that some of the smoke from the smoke machine is getting into one of the rehearsal rooms. It doesn't sound like the end of the world (end of the world, nuclear destruction, get it? Well you shouldn't because there ain't nothin to get there. It's late and my jokes are even worse than the usual!) so he kept on trying to light the space. When we do both head upstairs, a floor down from where we'd left the smoke machine, behind the glass double doors, we just see the thickest haze I've ever seen. We could barely get up the stairs - I couldn't see more than a few centimetres in front of me, and the smoke was all orange tint because of a gel on a light we'd been playing around with.

Is that all there is to a fire, I found myself asking? The answer, of course, being, no. Fires are like really scary, whereas a haywire smoke machine is at its worst irritating and at its best cool, actually a bit of both, but the building's fire alarm did get set off. (It took a disturbingly long time for that to happen, though, considering all the smoke we waded through...) And now of course, legal issues about the fire alarm and the smoke or not the smoke. But my gosh, it would be amazing to do a show where you just made an audience think they were walking through a burning building because there was so much smoke. Or hey, one of our rules for R and R is Think of England? How about some real deal dangerous London Fog. The biggest screw up of the day was far better than any special effect I'd ever be able to legally try out. Thanks to the sweet unexpected gifts that hazard can bring, and no thanks to Health and Safety, who will never let us do that with smoke again.

PS: Dress rehearsal tomorrow. Nervous/excited/I hope it works out! Also, excuse typos. It's late and I'm tigred.

PPS: My private unofficial name for my work from now on is "Max Fischer Productions." Parts of the set and looking quite seriously like the Heaven and Hell set at the end of Rushmore. But hey, in the words of Mr. Littlejeans: "Best play ever, man."