When the story on stage becomes painfully real

03 October 2026

When Benj Beatty began directing Dead Man’s Cell Phone, he could not have known how closely life would come to echo the play.

Sarah Ruhl’s strange, funny and unexpectedly moving work is about death, love, memory and the ties that remain after someone is gone.

During rehearsals, Benj’s mother-in-law died from cancer.

The loss changed the way he saw the play.

“You don’t expect the world outside the rehearsal room to collide quite so closely with the story you are telling inside it,” Benj says.

“Losing someone to cancer while working on a play that deals so beautifully with death, love and what we leave behind has made this production very personal.”

There is no tidy way to make something good from losing someone you love.

But there are things you can choose to do afterwards.

For Benj, one of those choices was to make one performance of Dead Man’s Cell Phone count for something beyond the stage.

On Friday 30 October, Ballarat National Theatre will hold a special Gala Night for the Fiona Elsey Cancer Research Institute, with the aim of raising $5,000 for cancer research in Ballarat.

Gala Night Tickets

“I wanted something positive to come from that,” Benj says.

“If we can fill the theatre, give people a terrific night out and raise $5,000 for cancer research, then we’ve turned one very difficult experience into something that might help another family.”

The partnership is a natural one.

BNT has been telling stories in Ballarat for generations. FECRI has built its cancer research program here with the support of the same community.

The Fiona Elsey Cancer Research Institute is Australia’s only fully independent, community-funded regional cancer research institute, carrying out research into a range of cancers from its Ballarat laboratories.

Institute Director Professor George Kannourakis says the Gala Night captures something important about the way Ballarat supports its own.

“There is something very special about one Ballarat organisation using what it does best to support another,” Professor Kannourakis says.

“Benj has taken a very personal experience of cancer and chosen to make something positive from it. That generosity will directly support research being undertaken here in Ballarat, and we are enormously grateful to him and to Ballarat National Theatre.”

Then comes his challenge:

“Now we need Ballarat to do what Ballarat does so well: get behind them and fill the theatre.”

For Benj, the night will remain tied to the person who inspired it.

For the audience, it is also something simpler: a chance to see a remarkable play, support local theatre and help cancer research being carried out in their own city.

One performance. One full theatre. And, hopefully, $5,000 for FECRI.

Dead Man’s Cell Phone – Gala Night for FECRI

Friday 30 October 2026, 7pm
Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute
117–119 Sturt Street, Ballarat Central
Gala tickets: https://events.humanitix.com/dead-man-s-cell-phone-gala-night-for-fecri

Dead Man’s Cell Phone runs from 23 October to 1 November 2026.