John had quite a substantial rôle in the Early Edition episode "The Play's The Thing", playing Reggie, an aspiring amateur actor.

There are two sets of screen captures :

• set 1, kindly provided by carver
• set 2, kindly provided by Kathleen

The premise of the series is that Gary, the star, receives tomorrow's newspaper today, delivered by an orange cat. He uses the information to right wrongs in Chicago, checking the following day's paper to see if it has all worked. The plot for this episode is as follows:

"Gary gets bitten by the acting bug when he makes a routine save at a small theater and he decides to join an amateur performance group. While at the theater, Gary runs into his old friend, ex-Chicago police detective Marion Crumb, who has also decided to give acting a try.

Gary replaces one of the leads in the play, who has had an accident. As Gary throws himself into his new role, the production is threatened -- first by a producer claiming to have rights to the theater and then by an arsonist."

It turns out that the arsonist is none other than John's character, Reggie. He is an amateur actor who has had some experience in bit parts, but has a huge case of stage fright. To avoid embarrassing himself in front of his girlfriend, he tries to torch the theatre so the show would not go on. After the tragedy is averted, Reggie realises that he will be OK after all, and things seem to be going well. However, Gary soon finds out that the woman who is the teacher and director of this amateur group is assaulted. When he goes to prevent it, he finds the rival producer fighting with her. It turns out that he was going to expose her as a fraud, who had started up amateur theatricals in other cities, then skipped town with their money before the play could be put on.

The rival producer now thinks he can take over the theatre, it being freed up, but he has reckoned without the acting troupe. They have discovered that they *can* act, and the show does go on. Reggie and the rest of the cast outdo themselves, surprising everyone with their talent. John's part in the play, a "Midsummer Night's Dream", was Puck, and his hair was slicked up into two little horns !