VGCC Drama students present modern comedy
Vance-Granville Community College Drama students will soon entertain audiences with an offbeat comedy for the digital age. “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” will be staged on VGCC’s Main Campus in Henderson, Dec. 1-4.
Performances begin on Thursday, Dec. 1, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, Dec. 2, at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Dec. 3, at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday, Dec. 4, at 2:30 p.m. All performances are in the small auditorium in Building 2.
This imaginative play begins with a persistently ringing cell phone in a quiet café finally being answered by a stranger, a woman named Jean, who cannot stand the ringing any more. She then proceeds to fall down the rabbit hole of the cell phone owner’s peculiar private life.
The comedy, by MacArthur “Genius” Grant recipient and Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah Ruhl, premiered in 2007 and won the Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play that year. A work about how we memorialize the dead — and how that remembering changes us — “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” is the odyssey of a woman forced to confront her own assumptions about morality, redemption and the need to connect in a technologically obsessed world.
A reviewer in Variety wrote, “Ruhl’s zany probe of the razor-thin line between life and death delivers a fresh and humorous look at the times we live in.” The play includes some content that is intended for mature audiences.
Students in the cast are Samantha Hines of Henderson as Jean; Jordan Bunting of Rocky Mount as the dead man, Gordon; Jessie Hartley of Oxford as Gordon’s mother, Mrs. Gottlieb; Brittney Patterson of Henderson as Gordon’s widow, Hermia; Camden Jones of Henderson as Gordon’s brother, Dwight; Allison Hines of Henderson as “The Other Woman” and “The Stranger”; and Jamie McGinn of Wake Forest and Benjamin Taylor of Franklinton as the ensemble.
Betsy Henderson, the VGCC Theatre Arts/speech instructor and department chair of Fine Arts and Humanities, directs the play.
Other members of the crew include students Chris Nicholson of Bullock (Stage Manager), Chadstity Copeland of Henderson (Lighting Board/Assistant to Director), Kellie Robinson of Henderson (Sound Operator), Evan O’Geary of Henderson (Costumes/Make-up) and Tajuan Glenn of Oxford (Backstage Crew/Projections).
Admission is $12 for the general public, and $7 for students and VGCC employees.
Tickets may be purchased at the door, but attendees are encouraged to secure their seats by purchasing tickets online through Eventbrite . For more information and to reserve seats, contact Betsy Henderson at hendersonb@vgcc.edu or (252) 738-3371.
Above: From left, students Brittney Patterson and Samantha Hines rehearse a scene from “Dead Man’s Cell Phone.” (VGCC photo)
