Busch is Back, Live at Victory Gardens
Posted by Albert Williams on Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 11:01 AM
http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2009/12/03/busch-is-back-live-at-victory-gardensIn the mid-1970s, an aspiring young actor from New York, Charles Busch, came to Evanston to study at Northwestern, where he couldn't get cast in other people's plays. So he began writing his own. One, Sister Act, was a drag vehicle for himself and his friend Ed Taussig. "We put the play on as a midnight show in a slot where they usually showed cult movies," Busch writes on his Web site. "Earlier in the week, Ed and I gave our first interview to a young reporter from The Daily Northwestern. The day of the show, the campus paper came out with a lurid photo of Ed and I in our Hester and Esther drag with the headline 'Decadence Reigns at Midnight Madness.' Needless to say, we were sold out. I don't know if the play or the performance was any good but it was a watershed experience for me. It was my first time as drag star and playwright and it felt really good. I came away from the night with the sense that perhaps there might be a place for me in the theatre." Later, Busch—a devotee of gender-bending playwright Charles Ludlam and his Ridiculous Theatrical Company—performed at such Chicago venues as the Body Politic and the fabled punk disco La Mere Vipere.
