PORTLAND — An incessantly ringing cell phone in a quiet café. A stranger at the next table who has had enough. And, a dead man with a lot of loose ends.

Thus begins “Dead Man’s Cell Phone,” an imaginative new comedy written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah Ruhl.

The production will open on Jan. 14 and run Thursday through Sunday for three weeks at The Studio Theater at Portland Stage Company, 25A Forest Ave. It is the second play of Mad Horse Theatre’s 2009-10 season.

“Dead Man’s Cell Phone” is a work about how we memorialize the dead and how that remembering changes us. It is the odyssey of a woman forced to confront her own assumptions about mortality, redemption and the need to connect in a technology-obsessed world.

Playwright Ruhl, 35, received a 2006 MacArthur Fellowship, commonly referred to as a “genius grant;” and her play “The Clean House” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her plays are widely produced in the United States.

Ruhl’s most recent play, “In The Next Room (or the vibrator play)” just opened at the Lyceum Theater in New York City, marking her Broadway debut.

Admission $18 in advance, $20 at the door with a $2 discount for students and seniors. For performance times or more information, call 730-2389 or visit www.madhorse.com.