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Dead Man's Cell Phone

Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy  /  4w, 2m

Sarah Ruhl

"Satire is her oxygen [...] In her new oddball comedy, Dead Man's Cell Phone,Sarah Ruhl is forever vital in her lyrical and biting takes on how we behave." - The Washington Post

Dead Man's Cell Phone

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  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    4w, 2m
  • SubGenre
    Subgenre
    Romantic Comedy

Details

Summary
An incessantly ringing cell phone in a quiet café. A stranger at the next table who has had enough. And a dead man – with a lot of loose ends. So begins Dead Man’s Cell Phone, a wildly imaginative new comedy by MacArthur “Genius” Grant recipient and Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah Ruhl. A work about how we memorialize the dead – and how that remembering changes us – it is the odyssey of a woman forced to confront her own assumptions about morality, redemption, and the need to connect in a technologically obsessed world.
History
DEAD MAN'S CELLPHONE was first presented at Wooly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington D.C. in 2007. It was directed by Rebecca Taichman.
Keywords
Performing Groups
A WOMAN, JEAN
A DEAD MAN, GORDON
GORDON's MOTHER, MRS. GOTTLIEB
GORDON'S WIDOW, HERMIA
GORDON'S BROTHER, DWIGHT
THE OTHER WOMAN/THE STRANGER - has an accent
  • Time Period Contemporary
  • Setting Various locations. The present.
  • Features Contemporary Costumes / Street Clothes
  • Cautions
    • Strong Language
    • Mild Adult Themes

Media

"Satire is her oxygen. . . . In her new oddball comedy, Dead Man's Cell Phone, Sarah Ruhl is forever vital in her lyrical and biting takes on how we behave." - The Washington Post

"Ruhl's zany probe of the razor-thin line between life and death delivers a fresh and humorous look at the times we live in." - Variety

"[Ruhl] tackles big ideas with a voice that entertains" - NPR

"...beguiling new comedy...Ms. Ruhl's work blends the mundane and the metaphysical, the blunt and the obscure, the patently bizarre and the bizarrely moving." - New York Time

Music

  • Musical Style N/A (Not a musical)
  • Vocal DemandsN/A (Not a musical)
  • Chorus Size N/A (Not a musical)

Licensing & Materials

  • Minimum Fee: £70 per performance plus VAT when applicable.

Scripts

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Authors

Sarah Ruhl

Sarah Ruhl

Sarah Ruhl’s plays include In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, The Clean House, Passion Play, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Melancholy Play, For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday, The Oldest Boy, Stage Kiss, Dear Elizabeth, Eurydice, How to Transcend a Happy Marriage, Orlando, Late ...

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