Kevin Rolston's DEAL WITH THE DRAGON Flies Into NCTC

In November, New Conservatory Theatre Center will offer a special presentation of Kevin Rolston's virtuosic solo play Deal with the Dragon, developed with and directed by M. Graham Smith. After an acclaimed run in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, as well as equally acclaimed Bay Area runs at ACT Costume Shop, Z Space and TheaterWorks Silicon Valley, a newly revised version of Deal with the Dragon makes its return to SF ahead of a planned New York premiere.

We all strike bargains in order to survive. And desperation is a beast. Deal with the Dragon is an acclaimed solo play that is both dark comedy and grown-up fairy tale laced with terror. Sound enchanting? Sign on the dotted line.

Deal with the Dragon runs November 10 - December 3, 2017. Opening Night is Saturday, November 11, 2017 at 8pm. Tickets are $15-25 and available at nctcsf.org, emailing boxoffice@nctcsf.org or by calling (415) 861-8972.

"Graham and I are ecstatic about this four week run at NCTC," exclaims Rolston. "And the timing couldn't be more perfect! Just last month while we were doing the TheatreWorks' New Works Festival, we discovered a new much stronger ending given everything going on nationally and globally. And we found it just in time to share it with exactly the kind of audience I had originally hoped to reach when I first conceived the play. To be performing this play at an SF theater devoted to telling the stories of the Queer and Allied community is thrilling and a dream come true."

Playwright and performer Kevin Rolston is a San Francisco actor and playwright. His first play Crystal Christian (about the hypocrisy of loud-mouthed homophobes who get caught doing crystal meth with gay hookers) enjoyed a workshop production at Magic Theatre in 2008. His second play This Many People (about the lives of Bay Area LGBTQ senior citizens) premiered at Counterpulse as part of the 2010 Queer Arts Festival. Deal with the Dragon, his first solo show, was named by KQED Arts' John Wilkins as one of six "singular and brilliant theater pieces" of 2016 and chosen by The List - the guide to what's on in the UK as one of the top twenty (out of 900) theater shows to see at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe. As an ensemble actor he was last seen as Charles Cooper in ACT's staging of "8" - the marriage equality play. Other acting credits include A Steady Rain at Marin Theatre Co, The Crowd You're In With at Magic Theatre, Blithe Spirit at CalShakes, Once In A Lifetime at ACT, Doubt at Center Rep, Opus at TheatreWorks and many others.

Director M. Graham Smith Smith is a San Francisco-based Director, Educator and Producer. He is an O'Neill/NNPN National Directing Fellow, an Oregon Shakespeare Festival FAIR Fellow and a Resident Artist at SF's Crowded Fire. He's directed in New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Portland Oregon, Washington DC, and venues in San Francisco. He directed the West Coast Premiere of Jerry Spring: The Opera in SF and Truffaldino Says No at Shotgun Players, winning Best Director for the Bay Area Critics Circle. Recent credits include the world premiere of Christopher Chen's Home Invasion in SF, Deal with Dragon at ACT's Costume Shop & Edinburgh Fringe, Amy Herzog's Belleville at Custom Made and Mia Chung's You For Me For You at Crowded Fire. He spent five years as Producer of Aurora Theater's new play development program and festival The Global Age Project, which launched Martyna Majok's Ironbound, JC Lee's Luce, and Allison Moore's Collapse, among many others. He teaches at A.C.T.'s actor-training programs, Berkeley Rep School of Theatre and at Barcelona's premiere Meisner Technique program in Spain.

New Conservatory Theatre Center has been San Francisco's premier LGBTQIA and allied performing arts institution and progressive arts education conservatory since 1981. NCTC is renowned for its diverse range of innovative, high-quality productions, touring productions and shows for young audiences; its foundational anti-bullying work with youth and educators through YouthAware; and its commitment to developing new plays to continue expanding the canon of queer and allied dramatic work.