The Connecticut College Theater Department made a splash this fall with two incredibly successful theatrical productions. The spring shows look posed to continue that streak of success, beginning with this weekend’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone. The show offers a unique theatrical experience, heightened by offbeat comedy, that explores death and the way people communicate in the modern, technology-driven world.
Dead Man’s Cell Phone follows a young woman named Jean (Julia Larsen ’14), who discovers a dead man (Ben Ballad ’16) sitting at an adjacent table in an empty café. The deceased man’s cell phone continues to ring, leaving Jean to answer the calls. As she does, she is sucked into the world he lived, meets the people he knew and learns the secrets he kept. The play concerns itself with the ways that people, both living and dead, connect. Liz Buxton ’13, Julian Gordon ’14, Alex Marz ’13 and Audrey Madoff ’16 round out the talented ensemble cast.
This production brings collaboration to a whole new level, with scenic and costume designs inspired by a hybrid of film-noir flicks and Edward Hopper paintings, original music by senior music major Ben Zacharia, and a ‘cell phone ballet’ choreographed by senior dance major Chloe Spitalny.
At the helm of this collaboration is Talia Curtin, a senior theater major and art and English double minor. For Curtin, this directing experience has been over a year in the making. Curtin read a plethora of plays before settling on Dead Man’s Cell Phone, which she proposed as her choice to the theater department last spring. Curtin was instantly attracted to Ruhl’s writing style. As she says, “I had read a few other plays by [Ruhl] and loved her writing style… the themes of communication, relationships and technology really resonated with me.”
Technology is an essential ingredient for Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and has influenced not only the action onstage, but also the marketing campaign. Through work with the Ammerman Center for Arts & Technology, Curtin and the creative team made a unique marketing campaign for the production, including an extensive social media campaign. Perhaps the most intriguing of these outlets is the show’s Twitter account, @DeadMansHashtag. Curtin describes it as “a place to collect overheard conversations in our daily lives… it’s fascinating to hear the things people say under the illusion of privacy.”
While technology plays an important role in the production, Curtin stressed that at its core, Dead Man’s Cell Phone is about humanity. Larsen plays Jean, whose decision to pick up a ringing cell phone starts on the journey of the play. Larsen further emphasized the humanity of the piece, citing a passage from the text that she thought captured the essence of the show. Larsen said, “[it’s] something that Dwight says in Act 2, and that is, ‘Life is for the living. Me. You. Living. Life, life, life.’” Larsen could not contain her excitement for the piece, attributing her wonderful experience working on the production to the hard-working cast, Curtin’s direction and of course, the play itself.
Dead Man’s Cell Phone is the fruit of great collaboration between student artists and faculty advisers. The production is sure to leave its audiences both laughing and thinking as they exit the theater. Make sure to support this production, which opens this Thursday, Feb. 28, and plays through the weekend. Tickets are available at the Box Offices in Cro and Palmer, or at the door in Tansill Theater.
