Interview: Charles Busch's MY LEADING LADIES at 54 Below Honors Women In His Life

From March 21 to 23, Tony Award-nominated actor/playwright/cabaret entertainer Charles Busch returns to 54 Below. My Leading Ladies is a new show of stories and songs devoted to the women who have inspired him from show business legends to the remarkable aunt who raised him.  A two-time MAC Award winner and Bistro Award honoree, Charles has created a unique place in the cabaret world as a sensitive musical interpreter and as a hilarious and touching teller of tales.  BroadwayWorld’s Bobby Patrick calls Busch a “consummate performer.”

Accompanied at the piano by Jono Mainelli, the eclectic songbook will include the best of Harold Arlen, Kurt Weill, and Stephen Sondheim. Tickets are available on 54 Below’s website.

Read a conversation with Busch about the inspiration for the show and more.

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What are you most looking forward to about your upcoming show at 54 Below?

It's been over a year since my last shows at 54 Below. Those were my most recent cabaret appearances. Over the past four decades, I've dipped my toe into cabaret at various times and in different formats: dramatic monologues, revue, and most recently, singing as much as comedy.  I truly enjoy the purity of performing in a cabaret setting. I think what I have most to offer is my gift for storytelling.  In cabaret more than theater, there's a direct line between performer and audience and my long-term goal is to focus and refine my skills as a cabaret storyteller.

What inspired you to focus this show on the important women onstage and in your personal life?

To be honest, I think every play and cabaret show I've ever written or performed is inspired by the women in my life and those I've admired on film and stage. In this show, I'm honoring as inspirations not only legendary ladies I've been privileged to meet (Claudette Colbert, Bette Midler) but early diva inspirations such as my seventh grade French teacher, who I had a desperate crush on. She left my suburban junior high to further pursue her career as an international cabaret entertainer. I was besotted.  

What is your process like of scripting and putting together a show like this? Can you walk us through some of the steps of crafting this show?

I start off with a preliminary list of songs that I'd like to work on, new and some I've done before that I'd like to further explore. I've been working with a wonderful musical director, Jono Mainelli. He's been coming over to my place once a week for quite a few months and we try out songs, and add and subtract. Alone, I write down notes on stories that I can connect to the songs. At times, it's the opposite. I have an anecdote and then find the right song to illustrate it.  Oddly, for a playwright, I don't write out the stories into script form. I jot down talking points.  It's important for me that my stories never sound scripted or memorized.  When I have the basic talking points, by myself I tell the story over and over so it's tight and controlled, but never set in stone.

You've been doing drag for a very long time. How does it feel to be doing this show right now in the current political climate? How do you feel like the politics of the moment are affecting the show you're putting on?

When I began this latest phase of my cabaret career about twenty years ago, I did the act in drag, basically because I thought that's what my audience expected of me, having played female roles for most of my acting life. It never quite made intellectual sense to me.  I was being introduced as 'Charles Busch" but then entered looking like Greer Garson and told true stories about my life and sang songs by Sondheim and Johnny Mercer.  After about ten years or so of this, I made the bold move of removing the drag and being absolutely myself without that safety net.  That said, I can't resist a bit of eye liner and some cheap but stage-worthy jewelry.  I wouldn't say that politics play a specific role in my act, but perhaps presenting myself as someone who enjoys and is secure in my androgyny is a political act in these strange times.  

What music has been inspiring you lately?

Last night, I shlepped out to a very cool intimate rock club called Sleepwalk in Bushwick to hear my nephew Jimmy's band "Adios Ghost." I was kind of dreading it and brought earplugs, but I had the best time. The band has worked very hard and have developed a marvelous contemporary sound that also evokes seventies disco.  I found it inspiring and made me feel less like an old-timer set in my ways.

Do you have any future plans for My Leading Ladies after your run at 54 Below? 

There was a period where I was feeling very Madame Rose in Gypsy, booking my act myself, sans management.  I really have to pat myself on the back. I booked us in 37 cities and four countries. That chapter is over and I have no plans at the moment of traveling.  But hey, if some empresario is interested, I travel light. No wig cases.

Are there any other upcoming projects that you're working on that you can share?

I'm deeply immersed in writing my first murder mystery novel.  I'm about two-thirds into it. It takes place in NYC in 1971 and is set in the world of classic film collectors, aging movie stars and the nostalgia craze of the early seventies. It's somewhat autobiographical, in that the amateur sleuths investigating the murder are my Aunt Lil, who raised me and the sixteen-year-old me.  I guess the sales tagline should be, "Auntie Mame and Patrick solve a murder."

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

I think that just about nails it.  

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Header photo credit: Eric Stephen Jacobs

Learn more about Charles Busch online at www.charlesbusch.com

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