WHILE playing “Murderer #2” for a “Shakespeare in the Park” production of Macbeth in 1994, a young Canadian actor had a lot of time on his hands.

   ”So what happened is that I created a cast party joke,” recalls actor, comedian and playwright Rick Miller of the Repercussion Theatre show in Montreal. “I actually never performed it, I considered it too stupid.”

   The joke melded the worlds of Macbeth and The Simpsons, with Homer and Marge in the lead roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. As one of the best-known (and shortest) Shakespearean tragedies, the straightforward Macbeth lent itself well to The Simpsons, Mr. Miller says. “One dysfunctional family does another dysfunctional family works pretty well,” he says. Some characters, like Krusty the Clown as the drunken porter, cast themselves.

   When Mr. Miller told friends about his Simpsons-Shakespeare mash-up, they convinced him to perform the sketch at a Canadian fringe festival. The performance was a big hit and Mr. Miller decided to expand the joke into a 45-minute show, which premiered in Montreal in 1996. “Fourteen years later, and several incarnations later, the show has now been seen by 142 cities and a half million people,” he says of MacHomer, which will be staged at Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick Oct. 27 through 30. “My joke has come a long way.”

   When he first put together his one-man show in Montreal, Mr. Miller called members of FOX, which broadcasts the Simpsons, to inform them, but no one thought much of it. Once the show’s popularity grew, Mr. Miller had to take the next step and meet with Simpsons creator Matt Greoning. In 2000, Mr. Groening and members of the Simpsons cast attended the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to see MacHomer and run a cross-promotion.

   ”They were incredibly generous, allowing the show to be a tribute or parody depending on how you look at it,” Mr. Miller says. “(Mr. Groening) saw what I was doing as adding to the show, not detracting from it.” Simpsons writers have flirted with Shakespeare before on the show, but have never done an all-Shakespeare episode. “I think the reason is because I’ve already done it,” Mr. Miller says.

   In MacHomer, Mr. Miller unfolds the entire tale of regicide and its aftermath using more than 50 character voices from the popular television series. This includes Mr. Burns as Duncan, King of Scotland, Bart as Banquo’s son Fleance and Lisa as Lady Macbeth’s gentlewoman. Mr. Miller always had a good ear for imitation, due to his training as a singer, and after a while it became a technical skill. To impersonate Simpsons characters in quick Shakespearean language became a harder, and weirder, challenge.

   ”It’s satisfying to know that I can do something probably no one else could do,” says Mr. Miller, before a performance of MacHomer at the Annenberg Center for the Arts in Philadelphia. Most of the words out of the characters’ mouths are Shakespeare’s, but “brutally edited and condensed and mangled.”

   To warm up his voice, Mr. Miller makes “funny sounds” for about an hour before each show. “I treat my voice very much like an instrument and try to take care of it,” he says. MacHomer incorporates singing as well, like a fake intermission tune and a Broadway-style number near the end titled “Tragedy.”

   In keeping with the spirit of The Simpsons, Mr. Miller packs the show with visual references and gags to evoke laughter from audiences. To sustain his one-joke concept, Mr. Miller says he aimed to make a very theatrical staging. A flipped over television acts as a modern-day magic witches’ cauldron and the central set piece. Behind it, a large projection screen provides visual jokes, Mr. Miller on live video feed, Simpsons characters and other backdrops to add to the multi-disciplinary show.

   Before setting the audience free, Mr. Miller switches gears and performs a version of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” in which he impersonates “25 of the most annoying voices in the music industry.” “It’s a good way to shake off the Shakespeare,” he says. “It’s a fun thing to leave people with.”

   Mr. Miller trained in Montreal as an architect, actor, musician and playwright. “I tend to throw all these things together when I make a show,” he says, enjoying the process of working with image, projection, video design and other elements.

   Before last week’s four-day run at the Annenberg Center, Mr. Miller hadn’t performed MacHomer in a month and a half. “It’s nice to revisit,” he says. “It’s very different from other shows I do.”

   His other solo shows include Bigger Than Jesus, which grapples with the thorny crown of Christianity through conflicting viewpoints, and HardSell, about advertising and molecular biology. While they possess the energy and humor of MacHomer, the two shows are less commercial and a bigger challenge for Mr. Miller.

   ”They push a few more buttons,” he says. “They’re not quite the family show that ‘MacHomer’ is.” Mr. Miller is also one of 11 authors from around the world in Lipsynch, a nine-hour epic production directed by Robert Lepage and themed around the human voice.

   The 2009-2010 season has been a busy one thus far for Mr. Miller, who is co-founder and artistic director of WYRD Productions, a company devoted to multi-disciplinary theater. With touring productions of MacHomer, HardSell and Lipsynch, plus development of additional works, Mr. Miller tries to maintain a balance between performing on the road and his family life. “I’m just trying to keep my (stuff) together,” he admits, “and still be a good father and husband. It’s always a challenge.”

MacHomer with Rick Miller, presented by the State Theatre, will be at Crossroads Theatre, 7 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, Oct. 27-30, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $32. 732-246-7469; www.statetheatrenj.org