Charles Busch
Encyclopedia
Charles Louis Busch is an American actor, screenwriter, playwright and female impersonator, known for his appearances on stage in his own camp style
plays and in film and television. He wrote The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
, which was a success on Broadway
.
. He is the son of Gertrude (née Young) and Benjamin Busch. His father wanted to be an opera singer but owned a record store. His mother was a homemaker who died when Busch was young. He has two older sisters named Meg, a producer of promotional spots for Showtime and Betsy, a textile designer.
Busch’s aunt, Lillian Blum, brought him to live in Manhattan
after the death of his mother. Blum was his mother's oldest sister and a former teacher. She told an interviewer: "He was so shy it was almost pathological. ... Before he moved in with me, I would pick him up in Hartsdale on a Friday afternoon, and he would be like a zombie. But the minute we crossed the river to New York he was absolutely a new boy." Busch was intensely interested in film as a young child, especially those with female leads from the 30s and 40s. Blum insisted that Busch read the front page of the newspaper every day to help him keep at least one foot in the real world.
Busch attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan. He majored in drama at Northwestern University
in Evanston, Illinois and received his B.A. in 1976. While at the university, Busch had difficulty being cast in plays and began to write his own material, such as a play called Sister Act about siamese twin showgirls, which succeeded in drawing interest on campus.
in his plays. He has said, "Drag is being more, more than you can be. When I first started drag I wasn't this shy young man but a powerful woman. It liberated within me a whole vocabulary of expression. It was less a political statement than an aesthetic one." His camp style
shows simultaneously send up and celebrate classic film genres. Busch has said, however, "I'm not sure what [campy] means, but I guess if my plays have elements of old movies and old fashioned plays, and I'm this bigger-than-life star lady, that's certainly campy. I guess what I rebelled against was the notion that campy means something is so tacky or bad that it's good, and that I just didn't relate to." Busch's first efforts as a playwright and performer were the one-person shows Hollywood Confidential, produced at One Sheridan Square Theatre in 1978 in New York City and Alone with a Cast of Thousands at the Source Theatre in 1980 in Washington DC.
By 1984, Busch's performance bookings grew slim. He held various odd jobs "to pay the rent", such as temporary office assistant, apartment cleaner, portrait artist, salesperson, shop manager, ice cream server, sports handicapper and artists' model. He thought that perhaps his last piece would be a skit put on in the Limbo Lounge, a gay bar in the East Village
in Manhattan. The skit was a hit and became Busch's most famous Off-off-Broadway
play, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom
(1984). When it was revived the next year at the Provincetown Playhouse
, The New York Times
described it as having "costumes flashier than pinball machines, outrageous lines, awful puns, sinister innocence, harmless depravity. ... the female roles [Busch] creates are hilarious vamps, but also high comic characters ... the audience laughs at the first line and goes right on laughing at every line to the end". Busch stated that it was the longest-running non-musical in off-off-Broadway in history.
Busch and his collaborators soon created a series of shows, mostly at the Limbo Lounge, such as Theodora, She-Bitch of Byzantium (1984) and Times Square Angel (1985, Provincetown Playhouse). The company called itself "Theatre in Limbo, and attracted a loyal gay following. Other early plays include Pardon My Inquisition, or Kiss the Blood Off My Castanets (1986), Psycho Beach Party (1987, The Players), The Lady in Question (1988, WPA Theatre), and Red Scare on Sunset (1991, WPA Theatre). Busch has been a member of the Writers Guild of America
since 1989.
He rewrote the book for the musical Ankles Aweigh
for an 1989 production staged by the Goodspeed Opera House. His Charles Busch Revue was produced at the Ballroom Theatre in 1993 in New York, and the same year he performed in a revival of Jean Genet
's The Maids
. In 1993, he wrote a novel, Whores of Lost Atlantis, a fictionalized re-telling of the creation of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. The Green Heart is another novel that was later adapted into a musical and produced at the Variety Arts Theatre in 1997 in New York City. In 1994, he took the male lead in his comedy, You Should Be So Lucky, in Garden City, New York
. Other works of the 1990s include Swingtime Canteen (1995), his autobiographical one-man show Flipping My Wig (1996) and a serious valentine to melodrama, Queen Amarantha (1997, WPA Theatre). His 1999 play Die, Mommie, Die!
was performed in Los Angeles and was made into the 2003 feature film of the same name.
(1997). Busch has twice appeared in film versions of his own plays: Die, Mommie, Die!
(1999), for which he won a Sundance
Special Performance Award and the comedy horror
Psycho Beach Party
(2000, as Capt. Monica Stark, a policewoman trying to solve the mystery). He co-wrote, starred in and directed the film A Very Serious Person
(2006), which starred Polly Bergen
and received an honorable mention at the Tribeca Film Festival
. He is also the subject of the documentary The Lady in Question is Charles Busch (2006).
Busch had a recurring role in the HBO series Oz
from 1999–2000 (the third and fourth seasons) as Nat Ginzburg
, an "effeminate but makeup-free inmate on death row, certainly a departure from his usual glamour girl roles." He also wrote television sitcom pilots and movie treatments as a source of extra income while he was a cult performer. He sold three pilots to CBS
that were not produced.
, when The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
opened following an earlier off-Broadway run. The play, his first in which he did not star and the first created for a mainstream audience, was written as a vehicle for actress Linda Lavin
, who played opposite Michele Lee
and Tony Roberts
. Allergist's Wife received a 2001 nomination for Tony Award for Best Play
and ran for 777 performances. Later in the run, Valerie Harper
and Richard Kind
took over the lead roles. His other Broadway work was rewriting the book for Boy George
's autobiographical musical Taboo
, which lasted 100 performances.
Since 2000, Busch has performed an annual one-night staged reading of his 1984 Christmas play Times Square Angel. In 2003, he headlined a revival of his 1999 play Shanghai Moon, costarring B. D. Wong. He has taken the eponymous lead in three productions of Auntie Mame
, two of them all-star staged readings (1998 and 2003) and one a small scale summer touring production (2004). Our Leading Lady, Busch's play about Laura Keene
, premiered in New York during the 2006-2007 season of the Manhattan Theater Club. His play, The Third Story, premiered at the LaJolla Playhouse in 2008 and was then produced in New York by MCC Theatre at the Lortel Theatre, starring Busch and Kathleen Turner
. In 2009, Busch wrote, and starred in a new play, The Divine Sister, a satirical take on Hollywood films about religion, including Doubt
and the Sound of Music. It played at the SoHo Playhouse in New York City.
Busch said, "I've always played a duality. I guess I've always felt a duality in myself: elegance and vulgarity. There's humor in that. I've always found that fun on stage, as well. It's not enough for me to be the whore. I have to be the whore with pretensions or the great lady with a vulgar streak. It's the duality that I find interesting." Busch creates theatre without a political agenda, and He predominantly portrays characters who are white, middle class, gay, and between 20 and 40 years old.
, a drag artist who founded The Ridiculous Theatrical Company in 1967 and wrote, directed, and acted in the company's exaggerated, absurdist camp productions. Busch worked briefly with Ludlam's company.
Busch has said that he was also inspired by seeing Joan Sutherland
and Zoe Caldwell
perform when he was a child; Caldwell encouraged the teenaged Busch when he met her backstage after her performance in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
. In 1991, Busch was performing in his play Red Scare on Sunset. He recalls that he had difficulty connecting with the audience at one of the performances. Caldwell happened to be there and came backstage after the performance to give him some bracing advice: "You are beautiful. But you were pushing too hard. You’re much better than that." Busch Thought that this was the best lesson he ever learned from a famous person.
Camp (style)
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
plays and in film and television. He wrote The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
The Tale of the Allergist's Wife is a play by Charles Busch.In his first play written for a mainstream audience, Busch explores the Upper West Side milieu of aspiring intellectual and middle-aged upper class matron Marjorie Taub, who lives comfortably with her doctor husband Ira in an expensively...
, which was a success on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
.
Early life
Busch was born in 1954 and grew up in Hartsdale, New YorkHartsdale, New York
Hartsdale is a hamlet and a census-designated place located in the town of Greenburgh, Westchester County, New York. The population was 5,293 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Hartsdale is located at ....
. He is the son of Gertrude (née Young) and Benjamin Busch. His father wanted to be an opera singer but owned a record store. His mother was a homemaker who died when Busch was young. He has two older sisters named Meg, a producer of promotional spots for Showtime and Betsy, a textile designer.
Busch’s aunt, Lillian Blum, brought him to live in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
after the death of his mother. Blum was his mother's oldest sister and a former teacher. She told an interviewer: "He was so shy it was almost pathological. ... Before he moved in with me, I would pick him up in Hartsdale on a Friday afternoon, and he would be like a zombie. But the minute we crossed the river to New York he was absolutely a new boy." Busch was intensely interested in film as a young child, especially those with female leads from the 30s and 40s. Blum insisted that Busch read the front page of the newspaper every day to help him keep at least one foot in the real world.
Busch attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan. He majored in drama at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
in Evanston, Illinois and received his B.A. in 1976. While at the university, Busch had difficulty being cast in plays and began to write his own material, such as a play called Sister Act about siamese twin showgirls, which succeeded in drawing interest on campus.
Early theatre years
Busch has usually played the leading lady in dragDrag (clothing)
Drag is used for any clothing carrying symbolic significance but usually referring to the clothing associated with one gender role when worn by a person of another gender. The origin of the term "drag" is unknown, but it may have originated in Polari, a gay street argot in England in the early...
in his plays. He has said, "Drag is being more, more than you can be. When I first started drag I wasn't this shy young man but a powerful woman. It liberated within me a whole vocabulary of expression. It was less a political statement than an aesthetic one." His camp style
Camp (style)
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
shows simultaneously send up and celebrate classic film genres. Busch has said, however, "I'm not sure what [campy] means, but I guess if my plays have elements of old movies and old fashioned plays, and I'm this bigger-than-life star lady, that's certainly campy. I guess what I rebelled against was the notion that campy means something is so tacky or bad that it's good, and that I just didn't relate to." Busch's first efforts as a playwright and performer were the one-person shows Hollywood Confidential, produced at One Sheridan Square Theatre in 1978 in New York City and Alone with a Cast of Thousands at the Source Theatre in 1980 in Washington DC.
By 1984, Busch's performance bookings grew slim. He held various odd jobs "to pay the rent", such as temporary office assistant, apartment cleaner, portrait artist, salesperson, shop manager, ice cream server, sports handicapper and artists' model. He thought that perhaps his last piece would be a skit put on in the Limbo Lounge, a gay bar in the East Village
East Village, Manhattan
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
in Manhattan. The skit was a hit and became Busch's most famous Off-off-Broadway
Off-Off-Broadway
Off-Off-Broadway theatrical productions in New York City are those in theatres that are smaller than Broadway and Off-Broadway theatres. Off-Off-Broadway theaters are often defined as theaters that have fewer than 100 seats, though the term can be used for any show in the New York City area that...
play, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom
Vampire Lesbians of Sodom
Vampire Lesbians of Sodom is a satirical play written by Charles Busch. It features a series of vignettes that deals with the lives of two eponymous immortal vampire lesbians, a creature known as The Succubus who is also known as La Condessa or Magda Legerdemaine, and the virgin-turned-vampire who...
(1984). When it was revived the next year at the Provincetown Playhouse
Provincetown Playhouse
The Provincetown Playhouse is a theater in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. It is named for the Provincetown Players, who converted the former bottling plant into a theater in 1918. Much of the original building was torn down in 2009 as New York University School of Law planned a new building on the...
, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
described it as having "costumes flashier than pinball machines, outrageous lines, awful puns, sinister innocence, harmless depravity. ... the female roles [Busch] creates are hilarious vamps, but also high comic characters ... the audience laughs at the first line and goes right on laughing at every line to the end". Busch stated that it was the longest-running non-musical in off-off-Broadway in history.
Busch and his collaborators soon created a series of shows, mostly at the Limbo Lounge, such as Theodora, She-Bitch of Byzantium (1984) and Times Square Angel (1985, Provincetown Playhouse). The company called itself "Theatre in Limbo, and attracted a loyal gay following. Other early plays include Pardon My Inquisition, or Kiss the Blood Off My Castanets (1986), Psycho Beach Party (1987, The Players), The Lady in Question (1988, WPA Theatre), and Red Scare on Sunset (1991, WPA Theatre). Busch has been a member of the Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
since 1989.
He rewrote the book for the musical Ankles Aweigh
Ankles Aweigh
Ankles Aweigh is a musical with a book by Guy Bolton and Eddie Davis, lyrics by Dan Shapiro, and music by Sammy Fain.The plot centers on Hollywood starlet Wynne, who violates a clause in her contract by marrying Navy flyer Bill while filming a movie in Sicily...
for an 1989 production staged by the Goodspeed Opera House. His Charles Busch Revue was produced at the Ballroom Theatre in 1993 in New York, and the same year he performed in a revival of Jean Genet
Jean Genet
Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing...
's The Maids
The Maids
The Maids is a play by the French dramatist Jean Genet. It was first performed at the Théâtre de l'Athénée in Paris in a production that opened on 17 April 1947, which Louis Jouvet directed...
. In 1993, he wrote a novel, Whores of Lost Atlantis, a fictionalized re-telling of the creation of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. The Green Heart is another novel that was later adapted into a musical and produced at the Variety Arts Theatre in 1997 in New York City. In 1994, he took the male lead in his comedy, You Should Be So Lucky, in Garden City, New York
Garden City, New York
Garden City is a village in the town of Hempstead in central Nassau County, New York, in the United States. It was founded by multi-millionaire Alexander Turney Stewart in 1869, and is located on Long Island, to the east of New York City, from mid-town Manhattan, and just south of the town of...
. Other works of the 1990s include Swingtime Canteen (1995), his autobiographical one-man show Flipping My Wig (1996) and a serious valentine to melodrama, Queen Amarantha (1997, WPA Theatre). His 1999 play Die, Mommie, Die!
Die, Mommie, Die!
Die, Mommie, Die! is a 1999 drag queen film written by Charles Busch, who also plays the lead role. Partly spoof and partly homage, it draws heavily on the tropes and themes of American "Grande Dame Guignol" movies from the 1950s and 1960s that featured strong, sometimes dominating female leads,...
was performed in Los Angeles and was made into the 2003 feature film of the same name.
Film and television
Busch's early film appearances include Ms. Ellen in Trouble on the CornerTrouble on the Corner
Trouble on the Corner is a 1997 Crime, Drama Film in which Tony Goldwyn plays Jeff Steward, a psychologist, takes good care of his patients mostly living in the same apartment. One day a piece of the bathroom ceiling collapse so he can watch the woman living in the upper apartment taking a bath...
(1997). Busch has twice appeared in film versions of his own plays: Die, Mommie, Die!
Die, Mommie, Die!
Die, Mommie, Die! is a 1999 drag queen film written by Charles Busch, who also plays the lead role. Partly spoof and partly homage, it draws heavily on the tropes and themes of American "Grande Dame Guignol" movies from the 1950s and 1960s that featured strong, sometimes dominating female leads,...
(1999), for which he won a Sundance
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
Special Performance Award and the comedy horror
Comedy horror
Comedy horror, also known as horror comedy, is a literary and film genre, combining elements of comedy and horror fiction. The comedy horror genre almost always inevitably crosses over with the black comedy genre; and in some respects could be considered a subset of it.The short story "The Legend...
Psycho Beach Party
Psycho Beach Party
Psycho Beach Party is a 2000 Comedy horror film based on the off-Broadway play of the same name, directed by Robert Lee King. Charles Busch wrote both the original play and the screenplay...
(2000, as Capt. Monica Stark, a policewoman trying to solve the mystery). He co-wrote, starred in and directed the film A Very Serious Person
A Very Serious Person
A Very Serious Person is a 2006 drama film directed by Charles Busch.- Plot :Jan , an itinerant male nurse from Denmark, takes a new job with Mrs. A , a terminally ill Manhattan woman raising her parentless thirteen-year-old grandson, Gil...
(2006), which starred Polly Bergen
Polly Bergen
Polly Bergen is an American actress, singer, and entrepreneur.-Career:Bergen appeared in many film roles, most notably in the original Cape Fear opposite Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum...
and received an honorable mention at the Tribeca Film Festival
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival is a film festival founded in 2002 by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff in a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the consequent loss of vitality in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.The mission of the festival...
. He is also the subject of the documentary The Lady in Question is Charles Busch (2006).
Busch had a recurring role in the HBO series Oz
Oz (TV series)
Oz is an American television drama series created by Tom Fontana, who also wrote or co-wrote all of the series' 56 episodes . It was the first one-hour dramatic television series to be produced by premium cable network HBO. Oz premiered on July 12, 1997 and ran for six seasons...
from 1999–2000 (the third and fourth seasons) as Nat Ginzburg
Nat Ginzburg
Nathaniel "Nat/Natalie" Ginzburg is a fictional character on the HBO drama Oz portrayed by Charles Busch.-Character overview:A homosexual, HIV-positive inmate, Ginzburg is isolated from the general population in Oswald State Penitentiary's Unit F–the AIDS ward...
, an "effeminate but makeup-free inmate on death row, certainly a departure from his usual glamour girl roles." He also wrote television sitcom pilots and movie treatments as a source of extra income while he was a cult performer. He sold three pilots to CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
that were not produced.
Recent stage work
In 2000, Busch's work debuted on BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, when The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
The Tale of the Allergist's Wife is a play by Charles Busch.In his first play written for a mainstream audience, Busch explores the Upper West Side milieu of aspiring intellectual and middle-aged upper class matron Marjorie Taub, who lives comfortably with her doctor husband Ira in an expensively...
opened following an earlier off-Broadway run. The play, his first in which he did not star and the first created for a mainstream audience, was written as a vehicle for actress Linda Lavin
Linda Lavin
Linda Lavin is an American singer and actress. She is best known for playing the title character in the sitcom Alice and for her Broadway performances.After acting as a child, Lavin joined the Compass Players in the late 1950s...
, who played opposite Michele Lee
Michele Lee
Michele Lee is an American singer, dancer, actress, producer, director and frequent game show panelist of the 1970s. She is best-known for her role as Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie on the 1980s prime-time soap opera, Knots Landing...
and Tony Roberts
Tony Roberts (actor)
David Anthony "Tony" Roberts is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in several Woody Allen movies, usually cast as Allen's best friend.-Early life:...
. Allergist's Wife received a 2001 nomination for Tony Award for Best Play
Tony Award for Best Play
The Tony Award for Best Play is an annual award celebrating achievements in live American theatre, including musical theatre, honoring productions on Broadway in New York. It currently takes place in mid-June each year.There was no award in the Tony's first year...
and ran for 777 performances. Later in the run, Valerie Harper
Valerie Harper
Valerie Harper is an American actress, known for her role as Rhoda Morgenstern on the 1970s television show The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and for her starring roles on the sitcoms Rhoda and Valerie.-Early life and career:Harper was born at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, Rockland County,...
and Richard Kind
Richard Kind
Richard John Kind is an American actor known for his roles in the sitcoms Mad About You and Spin City .- Early life :...
took over the lead roles. His other Broadway work was rewriting the book for Boy George
Boy George
Boy George is a British singer-songwriter who was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He helped give androgyny an international stage with the success of Culture Club during the 1980s. His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by...
's autobiographical musical Taboo
Taboo (musical)
Taboo is a stage musical with a book by Mark Davies , lyrics by Boy George, and music by George and Kevan Frost....
, which lasted 100 performances.
Since 2000, Busch has performed an annual one-night staged reading of his 1984 Christmas play Times Square Angel. In 2003, he headlined a revival of his 1999 play Shanghai Moon, costarring B. D. Wong. He has taken the eponymous lead in three productions of Auntie Mame
Auntie Mame
Auntie Mame is a 1955 novel by Patrick Dennis that chronicles the madcap adventures of a boy, Patrick, growing up as the ward of his deceased father's eccentric sister, Mame Dennis. The book is a work of fiction inspired by the author's eccentric aunt, Marion Tanner, whose life and outlook in many...
, two of them all-star staged readings (1998 and 2003) and one a small scale summer touring production (2004). Our Leading Lady, Busch's play about Laura Keene
Laura Keene
Laura Keene was a British-born American stage actress and manager. In her twenty-year career, she became known as the first powerful female manager in New York.-Early life:...
, premiered in New York during the 2006-2007 season of the Manhattan Theater Club. His play, The Third Story, premiered at the LaJolla Playhouse in 2008 and was then produced in New York by MCC Theatre at the Lortel Theatre, starring Busch and Kathleen Turner
Kathleen Turner
Mary Kathleen Turner is an American actress. She came to fame during the 1980s, after roles in the Hollywood films Body Heat, Peggy Sue Got Married, Romancing the Stone, The War of the Roses, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Prizzi's Honor...
. In 2009, Busch wrote, and starred in a new play, The Divine Sister, a satirical take on Hollywood films about religion, including Doubt
Doubt (film)
Doubt is a 2008 film adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize winning fictional stage play Doubt: A Parable. Written and directed by Shanley and produced by Scott Rudin, the film stars Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis...
and the Sound of Music. It played at the SoHo Playhouse in New York City.
Performance style
Busch's style is based on movie star acting rather than naturalistic femininity. Busch later said that he was described as "too thin, too light, which is the euphemism for gay. I was never cast at Northwestern for basically these reasons, and finally, I thought maybe what's most disturbing about me is what is most unique: my theatrical sense, my androgyny, even identifying with old movie actresses". He specializes in femme fatales. "I'm an actor playing a role, but it's drag. A lot of drag can be very offensive, but I like to think that in some crazy way the women I play are feminist heroines."Busch said, "I've always played a duality. I guess I've always felt a duality in myself: elegance and vulgarity. There's humor in that. I've always found that fun on stage, as well. It's not enough for me to be the whore. I have to be the whore with pretensions or the great lady with a vulgar streak. It's the duality that I find interesting." Busch creates theatre without a political agenda, and He predominantly portrays characters who are white, middle class, gay, and between 20 and 40 years old.
Influences
Busch was inspired by Charles LudlamCharles Ludlam
Charles Braun Ludlam was an American actor, director, and playwright.-Early life:Ludlam was born in Floral Park, New York, the son of Marjorie and Joseph William Ludlam. He was raised in Greenlawn, New York, on Long Island, and attended Harborfields High School. The fact that he was gay was not a...
, a drag artist who founded The Ridiculous Theatrical Company in 1967 and wrote, directed, and acted in the company's exaggerated, absurdist camp productions. Busch worked briefly with Ludlam's company.
Busch has said that he was also inspired by seeing Joan Sutherland
Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s....
and Zoe Caldwell
Zoe Caldwell
Zoe Caldwell, OBE is an Australian-born actress.-Early life:She was born as Ada Caldwell in Melbourne, Australia and was raised in the suburb of Balwyn in Yongala Street. Her father, Edgar, was a plumber and her mother, Zoe, was a taxi dancer. Caldwell's mother, Zoe, had a Peugeot of 1950 vintage...
perform when he was a child; Caldwell encouraged the teenaged Busch when he met her backstage after her performance in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a short book by novelist Muriel Spark, the best known of her works. It first saw publication in The New Yorker magazine and was published as a book by Macmillan in 1961. The character of Miss Jean Brodie brought Spark international fame and brought her into the...
. In 1991, Busch was performing in his play Red Scare on Sunset. He recalls that he had difficulty connecting with the audience at one of the performances. Caldwell happened to be there and came backstage after the performance to give him some bracing advice: "You are beautiful. But you were pushing too hard. You’re much better than that." Busch Thought that this was the best lesson he ever learned from a famous person.