The Catholic High School of Baltimore needed a trashcan fire for their Spring 2018 musical, Annie. The trashcan part was easy, thanks to the shiny, new metal can from Lowes, but I needed to weather it and vinegar was a good possibility here. After testing part of the trashcan lid (which the show wasn’t going to use), the vinegar worked perfectly. So I soaked a junk beach towel in vinegar and wrapped the trashcan for the night. No more shine the next evening! After that, the can needed to look like it had been around the block a few times, so my son had the pleasure of roughing it up with a wooden ax handle. He doesn’t usually help me with these projects, but it took surprisingly little coaxing to get his help for this task. Well dented and with a tarnished finish, my daughter then used her excellent painting skills to give the can the perfect “been out in the weather for years” look I wanted, without the actual rust. With the can looking great, it was time for the “fire.” I didn’t think the standard billowing silk flames would look right, but I had found a couple of different flickering “fire” LED sets online that would give the perfect light from inside the can. I overdid it with the LEDs and added a few burnt-looking pieces of scrap lumber in an effort to make them show better. The effect was fantastic, but the stage lights ended up overpowering them anyway. But the director liked the effect so much, she started and ended the scene with the stage lights down so the audience could get a good look at the “fire.”
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