Damn.

I won't die in time. I have to wait fifteen years!!!!

I'm sorry, no, I would NOT work on a show that featured a real corpse. Sorry. Just too damned strange.

I had heard about a theatre custodian who bequeathed his skull to the theatre; it was to be used as Yorick in any future productions of Hamlet. As such, I don't think it's weird to leave your skull to a theatre.

As for the casting call for a dead body: EW! Just EW!

There is a lot to be gained from having a real skull. I watched a high-school production of Hamlet where they swiped the skull from a plastic skeleton in a biology classroom. The problem was the skull did not carry enough weight, and would roll unconvincingly whenever ANYTHING happened nearby.

Not to be deterred, they put some nuts on a bolt, and wedged it up inside the mouth, where it stayed... until the line.

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew..." at which point the bolt drops out of the bottom, lands on the Hamlet's foot, and the Hamlet dropped the skull. The skull rolled off the stage into the orchestra pit, from where we heard a scream.

After a painful silence, Horatio said "Obviously a fellow of infinite jest"