Video: Charles Busch And Julie Halston Chat On THEATER: ALL THE MOVING PARTS

Writer/Actor Charles Busch and his muse, Actor Julie Halston are guests on June's episode of THEATER: All the Moving Parts, on the television station of the City University of New York (CUNY TV).

In this new episode, Charles Busch and Julie Halston exchange humor and wisdoms about their 35-year collaboration on Busch's high comedy plays from Vampire Lesbians of Sodom to The Divine Sister and The Tribute Artist. It's one of the most hilarious interviews this year! The pair also speak about their individual projects such as Halston's show-stopping Broadway roles in the Tony-winning Tootsie and You Can't Take it With You and Busch's wildly popular cabaret act Charles Busch: Native New Yorker, opening in London this month and returning to Feinstein's/54 Below in July. His play The Confession of Lily Dare, is coming to Primary Stages next year.

The key to their collaboration, says Busch, stems from a quote by the French poet and writer Jean Cocteau: "Whatever it is about you that disturbs people, cultivate that because that's who you truly are." As a college kid at Northwestern, he adds, "I was too everything: too thin, too eccentric, too gay." The only solution was to write plays for himself and a troupe of actors. That's where Julie Halston came in as the replacement in Busch's breakthrough "Vampire Lesbians of Sodom." Halston also acknowledges that she got the message from teachers and the world that she was "too much." Which made the one-time Wall Street gold analyst perfect for the Countess Vulva, in Busch's "Theodora, She-Bitch of Byzantium."

Says Pacheco, "What comes across is that their exceptional craft took root in the hothouse of Charles's restless imagination. Julie's dazzling comic turn in Tootsie and the deft emotional roller-coaster of Charles's recent work is the culmination of decades of rigorous comic applications that only appear to be shamelessly madcap."

THEATER: All the Moving Parts features in-depth interviews with directors, choreographers, writers, designers, composers and others - the unheralded professionals behind the scenes who are crucial to the success of any stage production. Pacheco delves deeply not only into the intricacies of craft but also elicits from his guests what drives their artistic achievements. Says playwright Theresa Rebeck, who launched the series, "I felt like I was being interviewed by someone who knows me better than I know myself." (See first episode.) Each episode is taped at Chez Josephine Restaurant in NYC.

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