The Dead Guy, a satire on United States reality television, was written by Eric Coble

Eric Coble

Eric Coble is a playwright and screenwriter. He is a member of the Playwrights' Unit of the Cleveland Play House.Eric Coble was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and raised on the Navajo and Ute reservations in New Mexico and Colorado...

and published in 2006 by DPS. The play is a mixture of on-stage acting, previously recorded segments, special effects, and live filming. The single set is made to look like a recording studio. The cameraman, Dougie, stands onstage and films most of the show, hooked up to a monitor that then displays his shots. The play can be divided up into French (pseudo) scenes, or smaller scenes, where the camera angles differ or the scene switches from live acting to previously taped footage. The previous footage is usually used in cut-to-interview format. The Dead Guy is very comedic until the end, where soberness and tension with the death of the main character change the entire experience.

The Dead Guy premiered at Curious Theatre (Chip Walton, Artistic Director; Sara Rutstein, Managing Director) in Denver, Colorado, opening on September 3, 2005. It was directed by Chip Walton; the set design was by Michael R. Duran; the costume design was by Emilee Cooper; the lighting design was by Shannon McKinney; the sound design by Matthew E. Morgan, props by Annette Westerby; and the videography was by Byron Matsuno and Todd Webster. The cast was as follows:

• GINA: Elizabeth Rainer
• ELDON: Todd Webster
• DOUGIE: Byron Matsuno
• VIRGIL, SECURITY GUARD, LEON: Ed Cord
• ROBERTA, WOMAN, SHEILA: Dee Covington
• CHRISTY, WOMAN, NANCY: Jessica Austgen

The play was premiered in Germany in 2010.

Characters

In the way defined by the script:

Gina Yaweth: A woman with a premise, 30s-40s. The producer of The Dead Guy.

Eldon Phelps: A man with no premises whatsoever, 20s. The star of The Dead Guy and, in fact, the dead guy himself.

Dougie: A man who watches. The sole cameraman for The Dead Guy.

Roberta Phelps: Eldon's mother, 40s-50s.

Virgil Phelps: Eldon's brother, 20s-30s.

Christy Moline: Eldon's ex-girlfriend, 20s.

Two Women: Girls who know how to have a good time (called "Disney Princesses" in the play.)

Security Guard: A man who knows how to kill a good time. A Disneyland security guard.

Nancy: A harried pediatric doctor.

Leon: An impressionable young nurse and born-again Christian.

Sheila: An impressive older woman and mother of a sick daughter at Nancy's and Leon's hospital.

Synopsis

In the first scene of the first act, we are introduced to Eldon and Gina at a bar in Leadville . Gina convinces Eldon to star in her new reality television show, The Dead Guy. This gives Eldon a week and a million dollars to do with whatever he wishes, but there is one catch: at the end of the week Eldon must commit suicide in a manner determined by millions of online and telephone voters. Eldon proceeds to give gifts to his family members and to propose to his ex-girlfriend, Christy, who denies his request with "You think I want to become a widow at twenty-one?" Angry, Eldon heads to Disneyland where he picks up hookers and gets drunk, and finally is kicked out of the park. When he leaves, he realizes that the voters of the nation want him to die by chainsaw accident. Afraid of this, Eldon tries to find a charity to take his money. However, no charities want his blood-money. Eldon tries to volunteer at a children's hospital but creates more problems than he solves, but his voters begin to cut him more slack. Eldon finds friendship in Christy, and the voters begin to love him as his doomsday comes closer. Finally, on the evening of his death, the write-in vote surprises both him and Gina. The voters want Gina to kill Eldon. Gina shoots him and he dies. The play ends here, with Gina's last line encouraging the audience that "There will be more dead guys."