"Dream Candles"

I just bought one of these candles for Appropriate, at Victory Gardens and I'm blown away. Chicago has particularly strict regulations about open flame onstage, so strict that in most theatres the regulations boil down to "no open flame of any kind ever."

I've tried lots of fake flame candles and always been disappointed and usually need to find ways to obscure the audience's view of the effect in order to make the ugly fake flame less obvious. Once I opened the Dream Candle I ordered, I was tempted to ask the actors to turn it so that the flame was more present for the audience, it was just so believable and so cool.

The candles are made by a company called Luminara and are sold through a number of dealers. I bought mine online at frontgate.com.

The candles can be turned off and on using a switch on the bottom, or using a small wireless remote. Be aware the remote has very little range, and isn't terribly reliable from more than a few feet away.

My candle cost me just over $50, but for the amount of use that I am sure it will get in future productions, and the size of the problem it solved, it believe it was worth the investment.