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About Dead Man’s Cell Phone

Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone is a wonderfully strange comedy about what happens when our attempts to connect with each other become tangled up with the technology that's supposed to make connection easier.

It's funny, absurd and occasionally downright peculiar, but there's something beautifully human underneath it all: grief, loneliness, love, the stories we tell about people after they're gone, and the things we wish we'd said while they were still here.

October 23 – 1 November

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  • Ballaarat Mechanics Institute
  • Comedy
  • Playwright: Sarah Ruhl
  • Director: Benj Beatty
  • Running Time: 2 hours including interval
  • 2026 VDL Award Entry


Performances

  • Friday 23 Oct 6:30pm
  • Saturday 24 Oct 6:30pm
  • Sunday 25 Oct 2:00pm
  • Wednesday 28 Oct 7:00pm
  • Thursday 29 Oct 7:00pm
  • Friday 30 Oct 7:00pm
  • Saturday 31 Oct 7:00pm
  • Sunday 1 Nov 2:00pm

Partners

  • Ballaarat Mechanics Institute

Show Dates and Tickets

Tickets can be purchased at the door or online up to 5 minutes before the show. Payment is available by cash or card. For any issues with online ticketing, please contact us via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Adult

$30

Concession

$25

BNT Members

$20

Group (min. 10)

$18

Child

$15

  • Friday 23 Oct 6:30pm
  • Saturday 24 Oct 6:30pm
  • Sunday 25 Oct 2:00pm
  • Wednesday 28 Oct 7:00pm
  • Thursday 29 Oct 7:00pm
  • Friday 30 Oct 7:00pm
  • Saturday 31 Oct 7:00pm
  • Sunday 1 Nov 2:00pm

Performance Venue

Ballaarat Mechanics Institute - Minerva Room

Accessibility information can be found here.

117-119 Sturt St, Ballarat Central VIC 3350

About the Director

Benj Beatty

219. That’s how many unplayed voicemails I have.

One is from a man who died a day later. We never met but his ghost lives on my phone. It’s been a year and to listen now would seem like desecrating a grave. So it stays, hidden amongst the voices of the living. If I listened, would he know? If I left a message, what would I say?

Exploring this blurring of the lines between the heard and the unseen, how technology connects us as humans while robbing us of our humanity, is why I’m excited to be bringing Dead Man’s Cell Phone to BNT.

Benj is a local actor and director, and is also the current President of BNT. In 2026, he directed Checked Out at the Creswick Twelve Minute Play Festival, winning the Audience Choice for Best Play. Dead Man’s Cell Phone is his full length directorial debut.

Benj has been involved as an actor in multiple productions in Ballarat and surrounds with a variety of local theatre companies. He has performed several times with BNT, in Wyrd Sisters (2023), A Date With Death (2024), Dancing at Lughnasa (2024) and God of Carnage (2026).

About the Playwright

Sarah Ruhl

Sarah Ruhl is an award-winning American playwright, author, essayist, and professor. Her plays include The Oldest Boy, Dear Elizabeth, Stage Kiss, In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2010); The Clean House (Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2005; Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 2004); Passion Play (Pen American Award, Fourth Freedom Forum Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center); Dead Man’s Cell Phone (Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play); Melancholy Play; Demeter in the City (nine NAACP Image Award nominations); Scenes From Court Life; How to Transcend a Happy Marriage, For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday; Eurydice; Orlando; and Late: a cowboy song. Her plays have been produced on Broadway and across the U.S as well as internationally, and translated into fourteen languages.

Cast

Chantal Amber

Jean

Chantal Amber is a queer neurodivergent actor and theatremaker passionate about creating new work and collaborating with other artists. Driven by curiosity, she can often be found wearing colourful op-shopped clothing, drinking tea, singing, reading, doing yoga, drawing and dancing (usually not all at once). Chantal has a Bachelor of Acting for Stage and Screen from Federation University’s Arts Academy.

Tim Constantine

Gordon / Dwight

Tim Constantine is a multi-award-winning actor with more than 20 years’ experience across theatre, film and television. His stage credits include Betrayal, Angels in America, Doubt, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and The Judas Kiss, while screen appearances include Neighbours, Underbelly and City Homicide. Tim recently appeared as Alan in BNT’s God of Carnage and returns to play the rather different brothers Gordon and Dwight.

Laura Edmondson

Hermia

Laura is thrilled to be bringing the role of Hermia to the stage. Most recently Laura performed as Freya in Wednesday Girl for Creswick Theatre Company's 12 Minute Play Festival. She is currently on the board for Ballarat Lyric Theatre, and has previously performed with and worked behind the scenes for Ballarat Lyric Theatre, BLOC Music Theatre and Creswick Theatre Company. In her professional life Laura services the community as a pharmacist and loves her work (possibly too much). Laura is excited to be in her first BNT production and she hopes you enjoy the show!

Melissa Lawrence

The Other Woman / The Stranger

After a lifelong love of being dramatic, Melissa graduated from Federation University’s Arts Academy in 2018, with a Bachelor of Arts in Acting. She has since worked with various local companies, including in Ballarat National Theatre’s God of Carnage, Creswick Theatre Company’s 12 Minute Play Festival, and several productions with The Bard in Buninyong, including Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, Marquise de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons and Electra in Clytemnestra. In her spare time, you can find Melissa surrounded by fabric and yarn, pursuing her craft hobbies.

Fiona Reilly

Mrs Gottlieb

Fiona has a B.Ed and an MFA and has taught and performed in Australia and overseas. She has performed in several plays while living in Tasmaina: Black Adder, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, The Season of Sarsaparilla and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. This is her first performance with BNT and she is excited!

Faith Stanes

Ensemble

Faith is super excited to be in Dead Man's Cell Phone. She has previously performed in Phoenix P-12 Community College's 'Wizard Of Oz' and is currently enrolled in their Arts Academy program.

Crew

  • Production Manager

    Ruby Abbott

  • Assistant Director

    Faith Stanes

  • Stage Manager

    Ruby Abbott

  • Lighting Design

    Joel Lane

  • Sound Design

    Benj Beatty

  • Technical Operation

    Ruby Abbott, Gemma Every & Dylan Bull

  • Set Design & Construction

    Benj Beatty

  • Stage Crew

    Zac Douglas

  • Marketing

    Pauline Constantine & Samantha White

  • Front of House Managers

    Ann Chadwick & Hayden Collins

  • Ushers

    Jacinta Antonelli, Grant Johnson, Rosie Porter, Samantha White & Tony Potter

crew