If your acting style is a little stiff, this is just the part for you

Not much need for a method actor here. Will Rogers of Burbank spotted an audition notice for the part of one Richard Warwick in an Agatha Christie play in Newhall. Warwick is described as “a dead, middle-aged male [who] appears in the first scene as the dead body in the wheelchair.”

Rogers, an actor-writer, said he considered trying out for the less-than-challenging role, but “I already contend with enough rejection, and doubt I could withstand the blow of not winning the role of a dead body.”

Write on the chalkboard 100 times. . . : Nick Steers sent along a photo from a Westside school whose marquee manager had a problem with the word “congratulations.”

Then again, it is the start of the school year and everyone’s a bit rusty, students as well as staff.

Digging into the Harvey archives, I was able to find several other examples of bad spelling that have welcomed students over the years (see photos).

Perhaps some of them were used as a “what’s wrong with this sign?” test.

Someone who didn’t do his homework: “If anyone is still wondering as to the veracity of high school English teachers’ claims that grammar is actually important and practical, the story of a local man should put all doubts to rest,” declared the Coastal View News of Carpinteria.

The newspaper said that a suspicious guy in a parked car was asked for an ID by police and produced a Social Security card that “looked legitimate” at first glance.

But further inspection revealed one sentence containing this confusing language: “This card is the official verification and you Social Security Number.”

Another had some unusual punctuation: “If you find a card that isn,t yours, please return to. . . . “

The federal government isn’t that sloppy. The fake card was a ticket to jail.

A different kind of hot spell: Hank Rosenfeld of Santa Monica found this passage in the Dr. Seuss tome “Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?”:

And poor Mr. Potter

T crosser, I dotter

He has to cross T’s

And he has to dot I’s

In an I and T factory

Out in Van Nuys

Hope Mr. Potter’s factory is air-conditioned.

Food for thought: Cops see some unbelievable sights. Take the LAPD officers who went to Minnesota in search of a suspect. They got their man, said the Thin Blue Line, a police publication, but that wasn’t when they saw a stunning spectacle. No, it was on their day off.

While roaming through the giant Mall of America, they chanced upon the “Castle of Spam.” Constructed as a promotion for a stage musical, it consisted of 13,000 cans of the stuff.

I’m happy to report that the cans were unopened, which is the way I like Spam.

miscelLAny: You know why we had this latest hot spell, don’t you? Because the schools were reopening. Happens every year, as though by a law of nature. Didn’t really improve the mood of the teens in my household.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.