A local theater group based in southern Connecticut will dramatize the wildly imaginative Dead Man’s Cell Phone, a new comedy by award-winning playwright Sarah Ruhl. The play opens April 24 at the Thomaston Opera House Arts Center and runs for eight performances.
An eccentric story centered on the ways we memorialize the dead and how reminiscing changes us, Dead Man’s Cell Phone is the odyssey of a woman forced to confront her assumptions about morality, redemption, and humanity’s need to connect in a technologically obsessed world. Of the play’s creator, the Washington Post writes, “In her new oddball comedy, Ruhl is forever vital in her lyrical and biting takes on how we behave.”
The volunteer theater company staging the play is the Backyard Theater Ensemble, a non-profit group made up of young adults who spend their spare time pursuing their love of the performing arts. The group produces, casts, and advertises its productions purely for the joy of entertaining audiences. The ensemble has been a full-time resident company of the Thomaston Opera House Arts Center since 2012. The performers are led by Artistic Director Donato J. D’Albis, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.
This will be the company’s sixth performance since its inception in 2011 and its fourth at the opera house. The show runs April 24-27 and May 1-4 for evening and matinee performances. Tickets can be purchased at http://www.LandmarkCommunityTheatre.org/ or through the Thomaston Opera House Box Office at (860) 283-6250. Contact the Backyard Theater Ensemble at Info@BackyardTheater.org for more information.