The Off-Broadway production is already hot seller and tickets for the limited engagement are expected to be scarce. Ruhl was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Clean House (seen at Lincoln Center Theater and in theatres around the country). Her Eurydice was presented in New York City at Second Stage. Dead Man's Cell Phone had its world premiere at Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC.
Joining Tony, Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner Parker (Proof, "Weeds") on West 42nd Street are Drama Desk and Obie Award winner and Tony nominee Kathleen Chalfant (Wit, Angels in America), Obie Award winner Bill Camp (Homebody/Kabul, Coram Boy) in the title role, David Aaron Baker (Broadway's A Raisin in the Sun, The Rainmaker, Abe Lincoln in Illinois), Carla Harting (Off-Broadway's Eurydice, Orson's Shadow) and Kelly Maurer (Broadway's The Old Neighborhood).
Directed by two-time Obie Award winner Anne Bogart (artistic director of SITI Company), the production will open March 4 and continue to March 23.
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This is Parker's return to the stage for the first time since earning a 2005 Tony nomination for the Broadway production of Reckless. She previously won a Tony Award for Proof and was also nominated for Prelude to a Kiss. She stars in the hit Showtime series "Weeds," for which she earned a Golden Globe Award, as well as an Emmy nomination and second Golden Globe nomination. According to Off-Broadway's Playwrights Horizons, "Gordon (Bill Camp) is dead, but his cell phone lives on. When Jean (Mary-Louise Parker), an empathetic museum worker, answers his ringing phone beside her in a café, she is soon playing unwitting comforter and confessor to the man's grieving friends and family. Before she knows it, Jean is ensnarled in the underbelly of the dead man's bizarre life. A wildly imaginative new comedy, Dead Man's Cell Phone is the odyssey of a woman forced to confront her assumptions about morality, redemption and the need to connect in a technology-obsessed world."
The production features scenic and costume designs by G.W. Mercier, lighting design by Brian H. Scott and soundscape by Darron L. West. Production stage manager will be Elizabeth Moreau.
The performance schedule will be Tuesdays through Fridays at 8 PM, Saturdays at 2:30 & 8 PM and Sundays at 2:30 & 7:30 PM. Subscriptions are now available to guarantee seats to Dead Man's Cell Phone.
For more information, visit www.playwrightshorizons.org or call (212) 279-4200.