In the middle of the Mojave Desert, dozens of miles from the nearest pavement, a lone phone booth stands on a dirt road. One evening, in the mid 1990's, the phone starts ringing…
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The Mojave Desert Phone was an isolated payphone in the middle of the Mojave Desert that became the world’s first viral phenomenon in the mid-1990s. It was discovered by Goddfrey ‘Doc’ Daniels who read about the payphone in the back of a zine. After writing about the phonebooth it became a worldwide sensation.
At its peak the once silent phone would be ringing off the hook, with people calling the number from all over the world. Soon it attracted travellers who would drive deep into the desert, led by the desire to talk to whomever happened to be calling. In an age before the internet, it became a place where being miles away from the nearest sign of civilisation was the only way to feel connected.
Our production tells the true story of the Mojave Desert Phonebooth, using a combination of fluid movement sequences, projected video output, verbatim conversation and a live DJ score. It was created from spools of archival information; interviews with Doc, transcripts of phone conversation, pirate radio broadcasts and e-zines and woven into a narrative by a talented ensemble of theatre makers. The show is on one hand a humorous character study of early nineties internet culture, on the other a nostalgic commentary on human connectivity.
