←Recommendations of THE CELLPHONES OF THE DEAD (ten-minute)

You always hear about horrifying events on the news but you are able to keep a certain amount of distance but in this powerful piece Dwayne confronts his audience with death and what the officer sees. Its a piece that will not only be heard but experienced and because it is so well constructed I would wager it will have people talking about it as they walk away. I powerful piece for the central actor and expertly put together. The point this piece raises needs to be heard and seen.

I was there for the first performance (actually, I was in it), just days after the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech. Based on actual circumstances, this short play retains its power and poignancy even a decade later. Highly recommended.

I first encountered this play a month ago and was grateful to include it in a reading of gun reform plays I produced. I can only imagine the impact this heart-wrenching monologue play would have with a full production. A snapshot, one facet of the impact of gun violence. It has stayed with me since the moment I read it; it will stay with you, too.

Yancey's unsettling images of a scene after a shooting, that time for a police officer to count and recount the dead, the sounds of ringing cellphones and the calls from love ones..it's a heartbreaking read. As a fully-produced solo show, the officer's narration of the crime scene that's haunting his memory, with the victims of that memory strewn across the stage, will be a heart-wrenching experience for the audience. Highly recommended short play for your festival on gun control.

Effective and heartwrenching, Yancey takes one of the most chilling details from reports of gun violence (he cites a particular incident, I heard about it in another, which just goes to show how sadly commonplace such events have become) and brings it to life in a piece that speaks for itself ... and for the victims of such murders and the helpers who come along and have to face the aftermath. Simple stage directions underline the tragedy of such events. Yancey's words here are both a moment of silence for victims and a call to arms for we who remain.