Parker, Tony nominated for Reckless and Prelude to a Kiss, and a Tony winner for Proof, joins the previously announced Tony nominee Kathleen Chalfant (Angels in America) for the Manhattan premiere of the wild comedy by Sarah Ruhl. Obie Award winner Anne Bogart, artistic director of SITI Company, will direct.
In the play, "Gordon 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."
Previews will begin Feb. 8, 2008, toward an opening of March 4. Performances will play Playwrights Horizons' Mainstage Theater at 416 W. 42nd Street.
Ruhl is a Pulitzer Prize finalist whose works include The Clean House; Passion Play, a cycle; and Eurydice, among others. Dead Man's Cell Phone had its world premiere at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC.
Additional casting for Dead Man's Cell Phone will be announced in the coming months.
The production will feature scenic and costume designs by G.W. Mercier, lighting design by Brian Scott and soundscape by Darron L. West. Production stage manager will be Elizabeth Moreau.
For more information about the Playwrights Horizons season, visit www.playwrightshorizons.org.