I wrote this one-act during my senior year at college.  I wanted the experience of writing, directing and starring in a play and so I wrote myself a vehicle.  Actually, it was a vehicle for my best friend, Ed Taussig and I.  We had become so extraordinarily close.  We were known on campus as "Chuck 'n Ed."  I wasn't even aware that "Sister Act," a play about a pair of Siamese twin showgirls in conflict about whether or not to separate, was frankly autobiographical.  The play takes place in the dressing room of a traveling freak show.  The star attraction, the twins Hester and Esther, work out their personal and professional dilemma with the help of their colleagues, the fat woman, the bearded lady and a Swedish masseuse.

We put the play on as a midnight show in a slot where they usually showed cult movies.  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.

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