FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Sarah Snyder
ssnyder3@umd.edu
(301) 405-8151
February 12, 2012 – College Park, MD – The School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies presents Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man's Cell Phone, March 1-9, in the Clarice Smith Center’s Kay Theatre. Directed by KJ Sanchez, this lively comedy follows the romance between a young woman and a dead man carried out via his still-active cell phone.
Join the artists, cast and director for a Talk Back after the Friday, March 1 performance. On Thursday, March 7, scholar panelists Kent Norman, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology; Jason Farman, Assistant Professor in the Department of American Studies and a Distinguished Faculty Fellow in the Digital Cultures and Creativity Program; and Jarah Moesch, Doctoral Candidate in the Department of American Studies and affiliated with the Digital Cultures and Creativity Program, will offer a post-performance discussion.
About Dead Man’s Cell Phone
Mousy Jean (played by Madeline Whiting) becomes irate when her solitary lunch is interrupted by the insistent ringing of a nearby diner’s cell phone and, in an uncharacteristic act of boldness, she approaches him only to find that his ringing phone is the only spark of life he has left. When the phone continues to ring, she flips it open and answers it. Thus begins her oddly intimate relationship with the man, unfolding solely through the people who knew him.
In the New York Times review of the play’s premiere, Charles Isherwood noted that the playwright “blends the mundane and the metaphysical, the blunt and the obscure, the patently bizarre and the bizarrely moving” to extraordinary effect.
Tickets
More information can be found on our web site. Tickets for this performance are $25/$10 (Students/Youth), and can be purchased online or by calling (301) 405-ARTS (2787).
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Produced by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. New York CityThe Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center is supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency dedicated to cultivating a vibrant cultural community where the arts thrive. An agency of the Department of Business & Economic Development, the MSAC provides financial support and technical assistance to nonprofit organizations, units of government, colleges and universities for arts activities. Funding for the Maryland State Arts Council is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Learn more about the Clarice Smith Center's donor support.