Charles Busch: Still Divine In Solo Show In Milford
Charles Busch looks divine on his divan.
It is a sunny January afternoon and the actor-playwright-drag artiste is casually chatting about his upcoming solo show in Milford from his “jungle red” living room in his Greenwich Village apartment.
But the conversation soon goes astray with quick quips, theater stories, and show biz gossip.
Eventually we return on track to the subject at hand: His Native New Yorker show, which will be presented by the Milford Arts Council in association with Pantochino Productions, Inc., at MAC, 40 Railroad Ave. South in downtown Milford, Friday, Jan. 25. Busch considers this his out-of-town try-out before playing at the off-Broadway venue, 54 Below, next month.
In the show Busch tells a comic- yet-poignant tale of his early years in the ’70s striving to find a place for himself in show business. Songs include the work of Michel Legrand, Rupert Holmes, Stephen Sondheim, Jim Croce, and others, accompanied by Busch’s longtime musical director, pianist Tom Judson. Busch will appear sans drag, “but in green paisley suit with rhinestone buttons designed by James Johansmeyer of Milford. It’s at a place where Bruno Mars meets Judy at the Palace.”
“The ’70s ,” says Busch, 64, “was a mixture of the excitement of discovering who I was as a person and as a performer as well as a lot of fear and frustration of what’s to become of me. Will I get past the gatekeepers? Still, I had a rather deranged faith in myself and it never occurred to me that I would not ultimately earn my living in theater.”
