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Synopsis

Cast

• Rachel: Ben Schatz | bio

  Kinsey Sicks Co-founder and Lyricist Ben Schatz was born in Boston. He cruelly ignored the entreaties of his parents to become a singing drag queen after graduating from high school and, to their shame went on to "study" (at least that's what he told them) at Harvard College and Harvard Law School. In both cases he graduated with honors. Ben was active in theater in college, doing eight shows, including his first performance in drag (if you don't count childhood Purim appearances as Queen Esther) at Harvard's Hasty Pudding show. Ben was also President of the gay student groups at Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and founded Harvard's first Gay and Lesbian Awareneness Day.

  Upon graduating from law school in 1985 (with honors! did he mention that?), Ben raised the money to found the AIDS Civil RIghts Project at National Gay Rights Advocates, a San Francisco-based public interest law firm, and became the first attorney in the U.S. to work full time on national AIDS discrimination issues. In 1990 he went on to found a national program for HIV-positive health care workers for the Gay and Lesbian Medical Assocation (GLMA), and served as the organization's executive director from 1992-99. In 1992, Ben also authored candidate Bill Clinton's AIDS and gay rights position papers, and went on to serve as Chair of the Discrimination Committee of the Presidential Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS. Because of Rachel's remarkable physical resemblance to Monica Lewinsky, Ben also performed other important White House functions.

  In 1999, Ben left his position with GLMA to become the manager of the Kinsey Sicks with the goal of enabling the group to support themselves full-time at their "craft." In 2002 Ben was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for lyrics in the Kinsey Sicks' criticially-acclaimed Off-Broadway show "Dragapella, Starring the Kinsey Sicks."

• Winnie: Irwin Keller | bio

  Kinsey Co-Founder Irwin Keller grew up in suburban Chicago, attending a high school that had already produced entertainers Harrison Ford, Hillary Clinton and fellow drag queen Karen Black. Irwin's family was a musical one. His father was a popular Chicago bandleader, and his sister went on to be a bass player and music director performing with Diana Ross, Rita Coolidge, Nell Carter and others.
  From a nerdy teenager, Irwin blossomed into a geeky adult. He studied linguistics and Near Eastern languages at University of Illinois/Urbana, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and then at the graduate level at the University of Chicago. He continues to dabble in a variety of dead languages, and speaks numerous living ones.

  In the mid-1980s, after considering the possibility of rabbinical school, but not knowing quite how to be queer in that world, Irwin began law school at the University of Chicago, where he helmed the school's Gay & Lesbian Law Student Association. During his law school tenure, Irwin authored Chicago's landmark gay rights ordinance, which was passed into law in 1989.

  Irwin moved to San Francisco to take a scary corporate law job, but soon found his way back to activism, through Queer Nation, ACT UP, and lawyering at the AIDS Legal Referral Panel of the San Francisco Bay Area (ALRP). He went on to become ALRP's Executive Director, a position he held until 2000, when he left in anticipation of the Kinsey Sicks's 2001 Off-Broadway run.

  Irwin lives on Sonoma Mountain in Northern California, with his family, which includes his partner of 12 years, another queer couple, and the two children they all [attempt to] raise together.

• Trampolina: Chris Dilley | bio

  Chris Dilley has been with The Kinsey Sicks since 1999.

  He studied at The American University in Washington, DC, where he received a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism with minors in Theatre & Psychology. In addition to a slew of theater performing, he formed an a cappella group, “The Stairwells,” (his first of five), while teaching acting and improvisation classes to students of all ages.

  After moving to San Francisco in 1995, he served on the board and facilitated meetings for Gay Young Spirit, a spiritual group for young gay men in San Francisco. He sang with gay a cappella group “From Top To Bottom”, founded and directed by former Flirtation Aurelio Font. He also began his career as balloon animal twister - a skill Trampolina occasionally takes advantage of.

  In 1998, he performed in “The Ballad of Little Mikey” at the New Conservatory Theatre Center, where he met The Kinsey Sicks, performing next door. Five months later, they asked him to join as an understudy, shortly thereafter a full-time member. While he was a seasoned a cappella singer, his first performance with The Kinsey Sicks was only his third time ever in drag, culminating in an unintentional and embarrassing revelation onstage. (Let's just say Trampolina's debut was a real crack-up.)

  Favorite theatre roles include Adam in “Adam and the Experts”, Rooster in “Annie”, and Claude in “Hair”. He has performed in many benefit concerts, and debuted his one-man show, “Trampolina's Night Off”, at San Francisco's Plush Room (performing on Patti Lupone's off-nights. She was thrilled.)

  He lives in New York City.

• Trixie: Jeff Manabat | bio

  Jeff Manabat was born and raised in the working class neighborhoods of San Francisco, where his father (a fabulous chef) and his mother (just plain fabulous!), though not schooled in music, knew its importance, and thus supplemented their son's education with weekly piano lessons. Instilled with a love for music, he continued to seek out ways of experiencing it: singing in choirs and theater productions; listening and studying great classical composers like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven; and appreciating the emerging work of Koji Kondo and Nobuo Uematsu. As an admittedly geeky kid, nothing seemed quite as satisfying as singing harmonies with his identical twin brother or plunking out a Kondo tune by ear on the piano.

  Luckily, he got his first taste of the a cappella scene while studying literature and music at the University of California, Berkeley (Go Bears!) where he soon earned membership in the school’s oldest a cappella group, the UC Men’s Octet. Years later and under his musical direction, the group placed first at the National Competition for Collegiate A Cappella at Carnegie Hall in 1998. Since then he has remained active in performance projects throughout the Bay Area including numerous stage productions and readings, as well as theater outreach programs that have brought tolerance and diversity education to high schools throughout Northern California and drug abuse and HIV/AIDS prevention and education to elementary school students in San Francisco.

  Favorite credits include performances with New Conservatory Theater (When Pigs Fly), Theater Rhinoceros (Cleopatra: The Musical!), San Francisco Opera (Earthrise libretto reading) Alameda Civic Light Opera (The King and I) and Seaside Music Theater in Florida (Miss Saigon).

  Jeff joined the Kinsey Sicks in 2004.

Crew

• Director: Ken Bielenberg | bio

  As a Visual Effects Supervisor for SHREK, SHREK 2, and Shrek The Third, Ken Bielenberg provided both creative and technical supervision to the digital artists who brought the big green ogre to the screen. His work as the VFX Supervisor on ANTZ and SHREK led to British Academy Award nominations for Special Effects.

  During his 15 year stint at PDI/DreamWorks, Bielenberg worked on countless commercials including spots for Matchlight, Lego, BP, Mercedes and the Clio award-winning 'Penguins' spot for Halls. In addition, he contributed to the effects work in the feature films ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD, ERASER and HEART AND SOULS. He also served as a technical director for the Emmy winning TV special, "The Last Halloween" and for the 3-D animated segment of the The Simpsons' 1995 Halloween Special.

  In 2001, Ken directed JUST RYAN which was screened at the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival in 2002. After leaving PDI/DreamWorks in July of 2005, he formed EYETHINK PICTURES with his partner, Alonzo Ruvalcaba.

• Producer: Alonzo Ruvalcaba | bio

  Alonzo Ruvalcaba joined Academy Award winning visual effects company TIPPETT STUDIO in 1994 to manage the set up of their new computer graphic (CG) facility and gear up for the studio’s first major CG production, STARSHIP TROOPERS. During his 10 year stint at Tippett, Alonzo produced visual effects for feature films and commercials including MISSION TO MARS and CATS AND DOGS as well as the Clio Award-winning CARL AND RAY spots for Blockbuster Video.

  In 2001, Alonzo moved into the role of Head of Production, where he was responsible for bidding and client relations, as well as general studio budgeting, scheduling, staffing, and management of a crew of over 200 artists and technicians.

  In July of 2005, Ruvalcaba, with Ken Bielenberg, formed EYETHINK PICTURES.

Bonus Features

• Making Of Featurette
• Deleted & Extended Scenes
• Director Commentary
• Cast Interviews
• Theatrical Trailers
• Scene Selections
• Outtakes

Accolades