‘Dead Man’s Cell Phone’ play dates and cast

Play:  Dead Man’s Cell Phone

Playwright:  Sarah Ruhl (How to Transcend a Happy Marriage, In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play, Eurydice)

Genre:  Dramedy

Synopsis: In a sleepy café, a woman becomes annoyed by the guy at the next table who refuses to answer the incessantly-buzzing cellphone in his pocket. She soon realizes that the man is dead. Exasperation gives way to fascination, and the woman, Jean, soon insinuates herself into the lives of his family and friends, meeting his widow Hermia, his mother, his emotionally icy wife and his mistress. In the course of meeting all these people, she ends up falling in love with the dead man’s brother, Dwight. The dead man himself, Gordon Gottlieb, eventually describes his last moments himself.

Historical Note: The play premiered at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington, D.C., on June 4, 2007. The production was nominated for seven Helen Hayes Awards, including a nomination for Polly Noonan who originated the role of Jean. The play premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on March 4, 2008, and closed on March 30, 2008.

Critical Response: Robert Hurwitt, in reviewing a production in 2009 in San Francisco, wrote: “After one of her better plays, you exit the theater to enter a Ruhl world of ordinary people living extraordinary lives and small coincidences opening into quirky metaphysical conundrums…. Ruhl’s gifts of probing humor, vivid imagination and poignant humanity are alive here.”

Director:  Frank Blocker

Assistant Director:  Toni Palumbo

Stage Manager:  Jeff Hoover

Cast:

• Jean:  Delinah Rosario-Mercado
• Mrs. Gottlier:  Melissa Hennig
• Gordon:  T.J. Albertson
• The Other Woman/Stranger:  Emilie Baartman
• Hermia:  Lynnelle St. Albord
• Dwight:  Christopher Noonan

Play Dates:  October 4-13, with performances at:

• 7:30 p.m. on October 5, 10, 11 and 12; and
• 3:00 p.m. on October 6 & 13.

Location:  Joan Jenks Auditorium at Golden Gate Community Center

September 29, 2024.