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Patrick Cullen didn’t blink when asked how comfortable he’ll be about appearing in the buff in front of 150 people at 2nd Story Theatre.

In fact, he joked, lately he’s been naked on stage so much he may have already been typecast.

“My last role required a lot of nudity,” said the 30-year-old actor. “I just did ‘Equus’ at Barker Playhouse and a monologue show early last year that (fellow 2nd Story cast member) Kevin (Broccoli) had written called ‘Naked People.’

“This seems to be my thing lately,” he quipped. “I don’t know if I have talent or if people just like to see me naked.”

You can judge for yourself when Richard Greenberg’s 2003 Tony Award-winning play, “Take Me Out,” begins its month-long run at the Warren theater Friday night with one of three weekend previews. The play explores the repercussions of a major league baseball star’s public revelation that he’s gay.

Mr. Cullen, who plays the homophobic Toddy Koovitz, is just one of several actors in the all-male cast who will recite lines au naturel. At one point, six actors drop their towels for a prolonged shower scene; 2nd Story’s re-creation of a baseball locker room includes six shower heads with running water.

Artistic Director Ed Shea insists that the cast’s “full monty” isn’t a cheap gimmick to fill seats or grab headlines. “Take Me Out,” he said, is a great play that touches on many different issues — how coming out affects the player’s fame, his relationship with his teammates and close friends as well as team morale. It also deals with racism — the gay ballplayer is of mixed race — and explores what baseball means to America, he said.

“I’ve known about this play for a while and I’ve always wanted to do it,” said Mr. Shea during a rehearsal last week. “It’s a very intricately woven story, a multilayered, sprawling story that touches on a lot of different things. It’s a very smart play, a funny play, a moving play and it’s fascinating to watch how (Greenberg) brings all these elements together.”

Baseball merely a vehicle

Ara Boghigian plays Darren Lemming, the star outfielder on the fictional New York Empires, who has the world on a string until the day he decides to go public with his sexual orientation.

“When I first read it, I thought it was primarily about baseball,” said the 31-year-old, who soon realized the setting was a mere device for the story.

A “huge fan” of baseball who played during his youth, Mr. Boghigian said it’s amazing to think there are no professional ballplayers today who are openly gay. (Glenn Burke, who played from 1976 to 1979, was the only major-leaguer who came out to his teammates and managers during his career. Billy Bean, who played from 1987 to 1995, revealed his homosexuality after retirement.)

The macho image projected by this most exclusive of “boys’ clubs” is precisely why the team rejects Darren when his true identity is exposed. “For someone like Darren to come out and think nothing will happen because everyone’s accepted him for who he is for so long — everything collapses around him,” said Mr. Boghigian, who’s appeared in seven or eight previous 2nd Story plays.

The conflict Darren’s revelation introduces plays out in a series of scenes between teammates. One of them is with Mr. Boghigian and Mr. Cullen, whose Toddy character is now uneasy about getting undressed in front of Darren.

“There’s a very funny scene where (Toddy) says, ‘OK, now I’m uncomfortable to go in the locker room because of you,’” said Mr. Shea. “And Darren replies, ‘Well, put some clothes on then!’”

Mr. Cullen, appearing in his first play with 2nd Story, said being able to shift gears between the funny moments and the more serious parts is part of the play’s acting challenge.

“There are all these important issues being talked about, but there are also all these comedic moments,” he said. “You have to have the right timing with the comedic stuff, but at the same time you have to be respectful of all the dramatic moments.”

On-stage plumbing

The set for “Take Me Out” is unlike any that’s been seen at 2nd Story. Designed and built by Trevor Elliott, it includes six shower heads set behind a scrim — a porous thin screen that can disappear and reappear depending on the lighting. A makeshift plumbing system pumps heated water to the shower and the runoff is collected from the rubber mat on which the actors stand.

“It’s beautiful,” Mr. Shea said of the shower set, which is basked in a soft glow of lights from above. During rehearsal he kept reminding the men to lift their heads toward the lights so their faces could be seen — which meant some of them took in the occasional mouthful of water.

“To be soaked like that and have to say lines can be disorienting,” said Mr. Shea.

The elaborate shower set was one of the reasons Mr. Shea took so long to tackle “Take Me Out,” which he’s always admired. The showers, he said, wouldn’t have worked in 2nd Story’s former “theater in the round” setup, in which the audience surrounds the stage area. After 10 years of doing plays in the round, Mr. Shea decided last June to switch to more of a proscenium in which the entire audience faces the front of the stage. The reconfiguration cost about $20,000.

“One of the reasons I did that was because I could now look at plays that I had kind of thrown aside — ‘I can’t do that because of the round,’” he said, adding that he also was tired of “looking at audience members,” among other reasons.

At first, some of his audience reacted to the change with a proprietary air. “They had a sense of ownership. They didn’t like change. Change is good, but people panic about it. They thought something was going to be taken away from it, I guess. But I like that they were so vocal about it,” said Mr. Shea.

The switch certainly hasn’t hurt the theater financially, he said. “By September we were breaking records with subscribers. We have 15 percent more subscribers than we’ve ever had before this year.”

Nudity essential to the story

2nd Story has featured nudity in a play only once before — an actor walked across the stage naked with a lamb under his arms in Sam Shepard’s “Curse of the Starving Class,” Mr. Shea said. “Take Me Out” features three scenes of nudity, but none are gratuitous, he said.

“It’s all essential to the storytelling because it’s an issue in the play,” he said. “And it’s about exposing who you are. The metaphor is right there, and the metaphor of the baptismal — being reborn into something that you should have been — and the washing away ... It’s dealt with there.”

As for the shower scene, he said, “How many times did you hear during the whole ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ thing about guys taking showers together? It was like they had a Rick Santorum-esque obsession with what was going to happen. Nudity is a topic of the play.”

The director’s not sure what kind of reaction he’ll get from his audience, or the public at large. “I don’t know if it’s going to create a controversy. I don’t think we’re going to have people get up and storm out. And then there are going to be people buying tickets because there are naked men on stage,” said Mr. Shea.

The director has no plans to warn audiences beforehand, either. “Is there a warning outside the Sistine Chapel that Adam is naked over your head? No, it’s art,” he said, adding that if some audience members are squeamish about what they see on stage, that also fits the play’s message. “It has to do with our level of discomfort as well.”

However, if there are underage people present or a parent with a young child, a staff member will talk to them before the show begins, he said.

Mr. Cullen said the cast is well aware that the show could be somewhat polarizing. “I think while some people will absolutely love the fact that they’re taking chances and breaking new ground for 2nd Story, there will be some people who will be a little leery of it,” he said.

Disrobing not an issue

Having said that, cast members interviewed last week seemed OK with shedding their clothes for art.

“Everyone seems down with it,” said 22-year-old Jeff Church of East Providence, who plays the racist, homophobic Shane Mungitt, a character based on the infamous retired major league baseball pitcher John Rocker. “I’ve done it once or twice before. It’s not the first time, but it’s still pretty scary.”

“It just doesn’t bother me,” added Mr. Boghigian. “Everything in this theater is about telling a story; it’s not about individual accomplishments. As long as we convey the story to the audience, we’ve done our job. Then it’s up to the audience to decide if they liked the play. We’ve had great audiences in the past, so I’m not really concerned about it.”

But, Mr. Boghigian added, he is a little nervous about the water temperature come show time. During the cast’s first run-through with the showers Jan. 3, the hot water was all gone by the time he had his pivotal scene with Mr. Church. The actors took a short break while waiting for the water to heat up — a luxury they won’t have in front of a live audience.

“I hope it stays warm,” he joked.

‘Take Me Out’

WHERE: 2nd Story Theatre, 28 Market St., Warren

WHEN: Previews are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Jan. 13 and 14, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15. Regular performances are 7 p.m. Thursdays (and Sunday, Jan. 22), 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 3 p.m. Sundays, Jan. 19 to Feb. 12

COST: $15 for previews; $25 general, $20 for patrons under 21 for regular performances

MORE INFO: 401/247-4200; www.2ndStoryTheatre.com