Lexington Herald-Leader culture writer Rich Copley has a bullet wound applied to his head by makeup artist Scott Turner at the Carriage House Theatre, Sept. 17, 2009. Copley was playing a cameo role as the murder victim in Agatha Christie's "The Unexpected Guest." Photo by Rich Copley | staff.

Note: Studio has added a performance of The Unexpected Guest, Sept. 24.

Doesn’t every theater want this: A dead critic on its stage?

Studio Players got that wish Thursday night when I played Richard Warwick, the dead guy in Agatha Christie’s The Unexpected Guest. Seriously, my character is dead from the moment the play starts and the title character (Graeme Hart) comes through a window to find me with an entry wound on the left side of my forehead and my wife (Lisa Welch) standing in the shadows with a gun.

All the actor playing Richard has to do is play dead for 25 minutes at the beginning of the show and then come out at the curtain call. Since it’s fairly short order-acting, director Gary McCormick is passing the part around to area theater notables, celebs, and me.

My evening started with showing up for a 6:45 p.m. call so Polly Robinson could walk me through my part, which actually required a bit more prep than just sitting there. Though I am dead, there were still some things I needed to prepare for, like a welcome jostling by Hart, a few characters poking and prodding me, and a gunshot pretty darned close to my left ear — wouldn’t work out well if the dead guy suddenly leaped from his chair. There were also entrances and exits to prep for.

Then, it was to makeup where Scott Turner, who also plays my brother Jan, had to concoct my entry wound.

Scott started by having me apply a moisturizer where the wound would go while he created this rubbery little hole for my head. Then he applied the hole and started trying to blend it in with my skin. One frustration he had was that the blood he was using didn’t stream down my face the way he wanted. I saw Bob Singleton sporting the wound last week, and it was ghastly. I joked that my blood clots quickly, though it was probably that the faux blood was no longer flowing the way it should.

Me, center with the hole in my head, and the cast of "The Unexpected Guest." Photo by Tanya Spears.

Finally, I had my entry wound and I was in some PJ’s and a robe, apparently Richard’s attire of choice for his favorite evening activity: drinking brandy and shooting at cats in his yard. Really, this guy was a major creep. No wonder they had trouble figuring out who wanted to shoot him.

So, it was time to play dead, which is not as easy as you think.

I was seated at the back of the stage in front of a window with my back to the audience, so they could basically see my head, shoulders and arms. Still, I had to be perfectly still.

The second I heard the curtain open, every possible itch on my body came to life. For a few minutes, I seriously thought I would walk off the stage and scratch myself bloody. I was trying to keep my breathing pretty shallow, but after a few minutes, a bigger concern was a need to draw a deep breath. So, I started trying to remember, from seeing the show last week, where Graeme and Lisa were on stage so I could take bigger breaths when they were drawing attention elsewhere.

There was a little discussion that some prior Richards had their eyes open and others went eyes closed. I elected closed, because that really seemed to facilitate being still, though stillness became my biggest concern.

Some people asked if the gunshot was hard to sit through. Not really. Graeme thoroughly advised me what he was going to do at that moment, and his cue that it was going to happen, so I just rode through that. My worry was that I was becoming so relaxed I might do something involuntary, like scratch an itch or drop the cigarette lighter I was holding, a key prop in the story. Plus, the position I was in got annoying, so I was thankful for the moment Graeme came, grabbed my collar, and shook me. It let me change position, though then I had to commit to that for the duration of the scene.

It turned out playing dead was not the 25-minute eternity I imagined, and then it was kind of fun sitting up in the Carriage House green room, where you have to be really quiet while the show is going on. Sound from the stage is piped in through a speaker. It’s crackly sound and the nature of this play took me back to nights I’d listen to the CBS Radio Mystery Theater on a little transistor radio in my bedroom.

I passed time looking through Larry Neuzel’s Studio Player’s photo albums and the numerous magazines with George Clooney on the cover — methinks someone at Studio has a thing for the sexiest man alive.

At the curtain call, Graeme introduced me — I’m sure people were saying, “does he own a car lot or something?” — and I made a clumsy attempt at pointing a finger gun at the character who had dunnit. I’m not giving away anything, as there are still seven performances left, including an added performance next Thursday, the 24th, because the show is selling out.

Over the years, people have asked me if I had thought about trying out for a show, knowing I have theater in my increasingly distant past. I did do my first acting in nearly two decades at my church in the spring, gaining some valuable insight, including how to endure a cell phone ringing in your big moment. But no, I am not going to put a director in that awkward position or risk keeping a serious actor away from a role, even a small one, by inserting myself into the scene I cover. Also, because of said job, I’d probably miss a lot of rehearsal.

But, for an evening, in a role that was being passed around outside the acting community, it was a lot of fun to be in the show — even if Studio had to kill me do it.