CABARET
Charles Busch is absolutely enchanting. As a singer, he gets to the heart of every lyric. As a raconteur, he tells the best stories — As an entertainer, he owns the stage.
Cabaret Scenes
Charles Busch
with Tom Judson at the piano
The award-winning cabaret artist Charles Busch displayed the reasons why he's such a creative force to be reckoned with as he had the Rockwell audience easily eating out of his outstretched hands in his current cabaret show.
Broadwayworld.com
Charles Busch has the gift of comic gab like few other entertainers. Innately funny, endearing and acutely intelligent.
The New York Times
Busch is a magnificent actor, which makes him a lyricist’s dream — consistently finding the meaning in every word and communicating with an audience through vocal precision, emotional passion, and broad gestures, enabling a listener to hear old, familiar songs as if for the first time.
Cabaret Scenes
CHARLES BUSCH is the author and star of such plays as The Divine Sister, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, The Tribute Artist and The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, which ran for nearly two years on Broadway 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 is also the subject of the acclaimed documentary film The Lady in Question is Charles Busch. He is a two-time MAC award winner and has performed his cabaret act in many cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta, Philadelphia, London, Paris and New York. In winter of 2016, his show The Lady at the Mic premiered at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series. His first CD, Charles Busch Live at Feinstein’s 54 Below, has been released by Broadway Records.
TOM JUDSON has appeared on Broadway in the Roundabout Theater production of Cabaret at Studio 54. He toured the country in that show and in 42nd Street. He composed the score to Whit Stillman’s indie film classic Metropolitan and has written songs for Sesame Street, Ann Magnuson, Lisa Kron and many others. Tom is also an author (Laid Bare), magazine columnist and Huffington Post contributor.
"CHARLES BUSCH: NATIVE NEW YORKER"
Actor/playwright/cabaret entertainer, Tony nominee and two-time MAC Award winner Charles Busch appears in a musical entertainment that gets to the essence of this legendary theatrical figure. Through an eclectic songbook from the seventies and early eighties, Busch unfolds an outrageously comic yet also poignant tale of his early years striving to find a place for himself in show business. Songs include the work of Michel Legrand, Rupert Holmes, Stephen Sondheim, Jim Croce among the best of Broadway, film and pop. He will be joined by his longtime musical director Tom Judson.
The New York Times
Charles Busch’s New Phase Isn’t Drag. It’s Green Paisley
By Elysa Gardner
"Perched on a stool on the stage of Feinstein’s/54 Below, Charles Busch eased into the first bars of Diana Ross’s torchy 1973 hit “Touch Me in the Morning,” his voice soft and husky, his delivery relaxed but rueful.... " Read More
Cabaret Scenes
Charles Busch: Native New Yorker
Reviewed by David Hurst
"It’s the rare actor who can take an audience from the heights of hilarity to the depths of despair in the blink of an eye, but Charles Busch is such a performer..." Read More
CHARLES BUSCH, MY KINDA 60’S
So Happy Together, Two for the Road and Anyone Who Had a Heart, are some of the songs spotlighted as Charles weaves tales of his childhood and adolescence through the lens of the tumultuous decade of the 1960’s. The eclectic songbook from Broadway to Pop includes some of the best of Burt Bacharach, Henry Mancini, Motown, and Kander and Ebb.
THE LADY AT THE MIC
Charles and Tom created a new show for Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series, titled The Lady at the Mic. In this show, both humorous and poignant, they pay tribute through song and personal reminiscence to five extraordinary and much missed women: Elaine Stritch, Polly Bergen, Mary Cleere Haran, Julie Wilson, and Joan Rivers.
“This show is the perfect next chapter in a career that has made Busch one of the most sought after cabaret acts in the city, producing evenings filled with “pleasures to be savored” (New York Times).
Some of the songs included are Bill, A Parade in Town, Sail Away, I'm Old Fashioned, Too Many Mornings and Quiet, Please, There's A Lady Onstage.
After keeping the crowd laughing for well on twenty minutes, Charles suddenly announces he'll sing a song by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen. Launching into "I Wonder What Became of Me," he chills the room in a blink, wringing wrenching poignancy where there once were bawdy stories.
Edge on the Net
Past and Upcoming Appearances
Feinstein’s /54 Below, New York, NY
Birdland, New York, NY
Club Helsinki, Hudson, NY
Feinstein’s at the Nikko, San Francisco, CA
The Purple Room, Palm Springs, CA
Bay Street Theatre, Sag Harbor, NY
Rockwell Table and Stage, Los Angeles, CA
The Rrazz Room, Philadelphia & New Hope, PA, and
Coral Springs, FL
Actor’s Express Theatre, Atlanta, GA
RSVP Cruise
Oasis, San Francisco, CA
Babson College, Boston, MA
Richmond Triangle Theater, Richmond, VA
Milford Center for the Arts, Milford, CT
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO
Cafe Istanbul, New Orleans, LA
Crazy Coqs Cabaret, London, England
Club Raye, Paris, France
Theatre J, Washington, D.C
The Art House, The Crown & Anchor, Provincetown, MA
Martinis Above Fourth, San Diego, CA
AT&T Performing Arts Center, Wyly Theatre, Dallas, TX
Segerstrom Center, Costa Mesa, CA.
Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York
Mr. Finn’s Cabaret, Barrington Stage, Pittsfield, MA
La Cava Jazz Club at El Retiro, Sitges, Spain
The Red Room, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Upstairs at Vitello's, Los Angeles, CA
Bridge Street Theatre, Catskill, NY