Charles Busch to Lead THE SILVER CORD for Peccadillo Theater Company, 1/14

Prolific actor, playwright and screenwriter Charles Busch is set to star in The Peccadillo Theater Company's upcoming staged reading of Sidney Howard's 1926 play THE SILVER CORD Monday, January 14 at 7 PM at Theatre at St. Clement's, 423 West 46 Street (between Ninth & Tenth Ave.) under the direction of OBIE Award winner Dan Wackerman. The entire cast will be announced early next week.

THE SILVER CORD, one of the most successful plays of the 1926-27 Broadway season, centers on a domineering matriarch (Charles Busch) who is pathologically close to her sons. Originally starring Laura Hope Crews, THE SILVER CORD opened December 26, 1926 at the Golden Theatre, running for 112 performances. Miss Crews subsequently starred in the 1933 RKO film version with Irene Dunne, Joel McCrea and Frances Dee.

Charles Busch is the author and star of such plays as The Lady in Question, Red Scare on Sunset and Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, which ran five years and is one of the longest-running plays in Off-Broadway history. His play The Tale of the Allergist's Wife ran for 777 performances on Broadway and won Mr. Busch the Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award and received a Tony nomination for Best Play. He wrote and starred in the film versions of his plays, Psycho Beach Party and Die Mommie Die, the latter of which won him the Best Performance Award at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2003, Mr. Busch received a special Drama Desk Award for Career Achievement as both performer and playwright. He made his directorial debut with the film A Very Serious Person, which premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won an honorable mention. Mr. Busch appeared in a recurring role in the HBO series "Oz." His novel Whores of Lost Atlantis was published in hardcover by Hyperion Press and as a Penguin paperback, and he is also the subject of the documentary film The Lady in Question is Charles Busch. In 2010-11, he starred in his critically acclaimed comedy The Divine Sister and his play Olive and the Bitter Herbs premiered at Primary Stages.

Playwright Sidney Howard also wrote the plays They Knew What They Wanted, The Late Christopher Brown, Dodsworth, Ned McCobb's Daughter, Alien Corn, and Yellow Jack. One of Hollywood's top screenwriters, Mr. Howard's classic films include Gone With the Wind, Dodsworth, Bulldog Drummond, Raffles, The Greeks Had a Word for Them, and Arrowsmith.

Founded in 1994, The Peccadillo Theater Company is a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to the rediscovery of classic American theater, particularly those works which, despite their obvious literary and theatrical value, are not regularly revived. Beginning with Eugene O'Neill (generally considered the starting point of modern American theater), Peccadillo concentrates on the era of the so-called well-made play, a period of sparkling wit and sophistication in comedy as well as deepening realism in the drama. It encompasses such diverse and little-known works as Jane by S.N. Behrman, The Shanghai Gesture by John Colton as well as the neglected plays of celebrated authors like Dorothy Parker and John O'Hara. Collectively, this work represents nothing less than the American experience itself in all its contradictions and screwball energy.

In recent years, Peccadillo has broadened its mission to include original plays and musicals that share some of the virtues of classic American theater such as period style, well-defined characters and strong plotting. Such was the case with The Talk of the Town, an original musical about the legendary wits of the Algonquin Roundtable, several of whose plays Peccadillo has produced. And Zero Hour, about the actor/comedian Zero Mostel, whose appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee was just as explosive as his stage performances. Peccadillo's most recent production was its acclaimed production of Jeffrey Hatcher's Ten Chimneys about Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.

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