Photo Flash: Sneak Peek at the Star of Cutting Ball Theater's SIDEWINDERS

Cutting Ball Theater opens its 15th season with the World Premiere of SIDEWINDERS by Basil Kreimendahl. M. Graham Smith makes his main stage directing debut at Cutting Ball with SIDEWINDERS, featuring DavEnd, Sara Moore, Donald Currie, and Norman Muñoz. SIDEWINDERS plays October 18 through November 17 (Press opening: October 24) at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at EXIT on Taylor (277 Taylor Street) in San Francisco. Scroll down for a sneak peek at the star below!

SIDEWINDERS owes as much to Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot as it does to SF Pride. In this absurdist-Western romp through gender queerness, Dakota and Bailey find themselves lost, possibly upside down, in a strange world with even stranger characters. Their journey to getting right side up provokes questions of sex anatomy, transgenderism, and who we really are from the inside out. SIDEWINDERS, which was developed as part of the 2013 edition of RISK IS THIS... The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival, was awarded The 2013 Rella Lossy Playwright Award. Administered by The San Francisco Foundation, the award honors the memory of Rella Lossy, a longtime champion of theater and playwrights. The award is given annually to support the production of a new play by an emerging playwright in the Bay Area. Kreimendahl's play was chosen by this year's juror, Michael Ritchie, the Artistic Director of the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles.

M. Graham Smith makes his main stage directorial debut at Cutting Ball with SIDEWINDERS; he directed the staged reading of the production during Cutting Ball's 2013 RISK IS THIS... festival. Smith is the Artistic Director of Precarious Theatre and the Global Age Project producer at Aurora Theatre Company. He has directed at the Walnut Theater in Philadelphia and the HERE American Living Room series in New York City. In San Francisco, directing credits include productions at the Yerba Buena Garden's Festival, Bay Area Playwright's Festival, American Conservatory Theater's Masters program, EXIT Theatre, Asian American Theatre Company, Playground, Brava Theater, Berkeley Playhouse, Golden Thread, and New Conservatory Theatre. Additional directing credits include the West Coast Premiere of Jerry Springer: The Opera in San Francisco for Ray of Light Theatre, the opera Love/Hate with ODC and San Francisco Opera, and Ken Slattery'sTruffaldino Says No at Shotgun Players.

A graduate of the University of Iowa Playwright's Workshop, Basil Kreimendahl's plays have been developed by New York Theatre Workshop, About Face Theatre, Wordbridge Inkwell, The Lark, Courier 12 Collective in Chicago, Stageworks, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Kreimendahl's play Orange Julius was developed at the O'Neill Playwright's Conference in 2012 and included in La Jolla Playhouse's DNA new work series. A Core Apprentice at the Minneapolis Playwrights Center (2012-13), and Jerome Fellow (2013-14) at the Minneapolis Playwright's Center, Kreimendahl is also the recipient of an Arts Meets Activism grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women for theater work with the trans community in Louisville. Kreimendahl has taught playwriting to elementary, high school, and college students in Florida, Kentucky, New York and Iowa, in addition to running and organizing a playwrights group for queer youth in Louisville called Out On The Edge. The Provost's Visiting Writer at the University of Iowa (2013-14), Kreimendahl's short plays have twice been finalists for the Heideman Award.

Cutting Ball Theater has assembled a talented ensemble for SIDEWINDERS.

DavEnd (Bailey) is a genderqueer songwriter, performance artist, and costume designer. Recent credits include Magic Theatre's production of Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge. DavEnd wrote, produced and starred in 2 sold out runs of the original musical Fabulous Artistic Guys Get Overtly Traumatized Sometimes: The Musical! at CounterPULSE. Additionally, DavEnd has released two studio albums (How To Hold Your Own Hand, Fruits Commonly Mistaken For Vegetables) and tours the U.S. extensively, performing at queer teen centers, festivals, and colleges.

Lauded physical comedienne Sara Moore (Dakota) has created, directed, and performed material for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, The Krofft Puppets, The New Pickle Circus, and Circus Center, among others, and has opened for and performed with such stage greats as Chita Rivera, Carol Channing, Rita Moreno, Sammy Cahn, and Phyllis Diller. Regional theater credits include productions at New Conservatory Theatre Center, Theatre Rhino, Aurora Theatre Company, Brava Theater, Center Repertory Company, The Rrazz Room, and Z Space; New York credits include productions at La Mama ETC, Ars Nova, Women's Project, The Vital Theatre, and P.S. 122. Additionally, Moore is the recipient of awards and commissions from The McKnight Independent Film Fund, The Jerome Foundation, and The Playwrights Foundation, among others. Her "human cartoon," Wunderworld, made its World Premiere at the Children's Creativity Museum in summer 2013; in 2014 she will debut Cyclones with fellow San Francisco clown Joan Mankin, directed by M. Graham Smith and co-produced with Z Space.

Donald Currie (Sandy) is a company member of Boxcar Theatre and Artist in Residence at Virago Theatre. Credits include productions at Virago Theatre, Theatre Shark, Theatre Rhino, Boxcar Theatre, and New Conservatory Theatre Center.

Norman Muñoz. (Sam) is a dance, theater, circus, and burlesque performer. A current teaching artist with TheatreWorks, credits include productions at San Francisco Playhouse, New Conservatory Theater, and tours of Europe and Africa with Theatre of Yugen.

The show will run in previews October 18, 19, 8pm; October 20, 5pm and opens: on October 24. (Press opening: Oct. 24, 7:30pm; Gala opening: Oct. 25, 8pm). Closing: November 17, 2013. All performances Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday-Saturday at 8pm, Saturday at 2pm, and Sunday at 5pm at The Cutting Ball Theater in residence at EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor St., San Francisco. For season membership, single tickets ($10-50), and more information, the public may visit cuttingball.com or call 415-525-1205.

Photographer: Laura Mason

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