'Dead Man’s Cell Phone' at Westminster Community Playhouse

OC Theatre Guild
Jan 4
4 min read

Would you answer a stranger’s phone? And how far would you go once you do? These questions ring through this Obie Award–winning and Pulitzer Prize finalist play.

From Left: Eric Parmer, Sarah Hoven and Mia Josimovic. Photo courtesy of Westminster Community Playhouse.

by MaryAnn DiPietro

A cell phone rings. No one answers. Its owner is dead.

A flash of modern anxiety, a device demanding attention. That is what sets the story in motion. “Dead Man’s Cell Phone,” Sarah Ruhl’s haunting and unexpectedly funny examination of grief connection, and the strange ways technology dictates human interaction, opens at Westminster Community Playhouse this January. “We’re in a moment where grief is a constant feeling,” says director Chloe King, “while at the same time, we’re incredibly disconnected from one another. This play lives right in that space, which makes it feel very relevant right now.”

King, a director and choreographer who earned her master’s degree in directing from the University of California, Irvine, in 2023, has worked across professional and nonprofessional theater for many years. Originally from Colorado, she lived in Sacramento after completing her undergraduate studies before relocating to Southern California for graduate school. While she began her career as a performer, she now prefers to work on the creative side.

This marks her first production with Westminster Community Playhouse, although the play itself has been on her artistic radar for years. “I’d been interested in ‘Dead Man’s Cell Phone’ for a long time,” she said. “I’ve worked at other theaters that had produced it but have never had the opportunity to be a part of it.”

From Left: Chris Brennan, Sara Hoven, Yuka Kawai, Chloe King (Director) and Chris Brennan. Photo courtesy of Westminster Community Playhouse.

Written in 2007, the Helen Hayes Award winner for Outstanding New Play begins with a simple premise. Jean, an anxious, socially awkward woman sitting alone in a café, answers a ringing phone that has been left behind. The phone belongs to Gordon, a man who has just died. From that single impulsive act, Jean is immersed into Gordon’s life. She attends his funeral, meeting his family and colleagues, and continues to answer calls coming in on his cell phone. “She walks into his life,” King explained, “not pretending to be him but answering his calls, going to family gatherings and entering these very sacred, private spaces.”

Ruhl, a Pulitzer Prize finalist known for “The Clean House” and “Eurydice,” wrote the play in two acts. The first act feels realistic and restrained, while the second plunges into a surrealistic space. For King, navigating that shift has been one of the most challenging parts of the process. “Sarah Ruhl writes a lot of mysteries for the people working on her productions,” King said. “This play starts off feeling very real and then suddenly we’re in a completely different universe. The question becomes, why did she write it this way? I really believe she had a specific intention behind that shift.”

King’s creative vision is grounded in grief, which can be complicated and deeply human. A few years ago, she listened to an interview with a death doula, an experience that left a lasting impression on her. She is also developing a separate theater project built around interviews on grief, and those ideas have helped inform the tone of this production. She shared, “I wanted to approach this from a place of allowing grief to be relatable, not theatricalized in a sentimental way.”

Having worked as a choreographer for many years, movement plays a significant role in realizing King’s vision. Although Ruhl’s script does not specifically call for it, King is weaving physical storytelling throughout the production, particularly in how Gordon’s presence lingers after his death. “There’s a desire to make him feel physically present,” she said. “Movement becomes a kind of universal language where words fall short.”

From Left: Chris Brennan, Eric Parmer and Mia Josimovic. Photo courtesy of Westminster Community Playhouse.

In addition to movement, King imagines cell phones suspended above the stage, lighting up when they ring, allowing the entire space to respond. The production will use projections in place of traditional sets, accommodating the play’s many locations. Music has also become an increasingly important element of the storytelling. “Our relationship with phones is very different now than it was when the play was written,” King said. “There’s anxiety when a phone rings in public. There’s overwhelm. And phones ring constantly in this play.”

Certain lines in the script continue to resonate deeply with the director. One, spoken in reference to a phone, lands with striking emotional weight, King noted: “And after a death, there is an almost silence. You have to bury it. Bury it very deep.” She added, “It’s about the phone but it’s also about the emotions we try to bury.” Another line captures what she describes as the play’s quiet devastation: “I wonder how long it will be before no one calls him anymore. Then he will really be gone.” If you’ve ever lost someone, that hits hard. Remembering people is what keeps them alive. “There’s a second tragedy in being forgotten,” King said.

Overall, King hopes audiences leave the theater with a heightened awareness of their own relationships. “I hope people walk out craving more connection,” she said, “and examining how they show up for the people in their lives.”