Alan Rorrison is the creator of Smoke and a working performer. He offers this moment of panic so you might feel better about your own follies.
You know, you have all the normal ones. When I was testing Smoke I got kicked out of my own gigs for smoking in non-smoking venues. That’s happened on more than one occasion.
But the worst is this.
I was at a restaurant that will remain nameless. Doing walk around. Walked up to a little couple. Did the ring flight, and it wasn’t in the wallet. I didn’t secure it properly.
What I didn’t know was that she had just been proposed to not but five minutes earlier.
I was sweating my butt off. I was feeling the wallet and I’m like… that doesn’t feel like it’s in there. So I open it and it isn’t in there and my heart sinks… I’m like “I am never getting paid for anything ever again.”
Then I figured out that the commotion behind me was because the ring went into the soup at another table. I made a joke to the couple. Went back and paid for their meal of the soup people. Cleaned the ring and got it on the stem of a champagne flute. It was the worst 10 minutes of my life.
I never told her that it was lost. The magic moment just happened a bit later than it would have otherwise.
I don’t know what that says about her character that she was willing to hand her ring to a total stranger but she was.