This is going to be a lot longer of an answer than I am sure you were looking for but I happen to have been working on this issue at my work place for year or so now. The short answer for us is E-Cigarettes. They are worth the price, look real, and are arguably the least harmful. However, E-Cigs are not regulated in the USA, not manufactured in the USA, and very little research has been done on the chemicals they use. They could very well be as harmful as a normal cigarette, but simply put not enough research has been done.
You may also need to look at the laws of your state, county, and city. If they have an indoor smoking ban, or a public smoking ban, you may be in trouble with the E-Cigs or anything not fake/candy. More on that below....
I work at a community college about an hour north of Chicago. I ran into this problem here and by ran into, I mean was the only ones who cared enough to look into the law during a recent production of
The Glass Menagerie where the director wanted Tom to
smoke.
As for the Illinois state law, There is no smoking of any kind allowed inside a public building. The law states, "
Smoke" or "smoking" means the carrying, smoking, burning, inhaling, or exhaling of any kind of
lighted pipe, cigar,cigarette, hookah, weed, herbs, or any other
lighted smoking equipment." This includes hookahs, pipes, cigars, cigarillos, cloves,
etc.
etc. It also specifically defines "indoor theaters" as public spaces. So nuts to them!
We bought two of the electronic cigarettes with some flavor I can't remember but with cartridges that do not have nicotine or a tobacco flavor. ( It has come to my attention that without sending it to a lab, there is no real way to verify this.) They look real enough to me and you still get that puff of
smoke out of the actor's mouth which is nice. No one has complained so far but I imagine it will happen one of these days. I do not consider these "lighted" smoking equipment as they are battery powered.
I took the time to write to the Illinois Arts Council after some research online and asked what they were doing to
gain an exception for theaters in Illinois. I got a very quick response from the director saying that he had forwarded my E-mail on to another group representing the LOTR theaters in Chicago and that they were working on the issue with the state legislature. I've yet to hear anything else but I appreciated the reply none the less.
I know this was an issue for Jersey Boys when it toured in the city but I don't know how it was resolved. My recollection is that one night was canceled and after they failed to get a waiver they cut it from the show. Don't quote me on that however.
As for my personal take on this overly long reply to a simple question, I say
smoke em if you got them and take on the lawsuit/fine if it ever comes. I understand not using actual tobacco products on
stage, but it is completely ridiculous not to take the performing arts into consideration when drafting laws like this. To ban smoking from a
play would be to change the nature of what the author intended in his or her script.
And lastly, if you are on a school campus, you may be in violation of the school being a Tobacco/
Smoke free campus. This is an issue at where I work now and I am working with committees to have some sort of language that does not prohibit the theater department from merely portraying smoking on
stage with some device that contains no nicotine/tobacco.