Behind Lily's every move lies her greatest secret, her undying devotion to the child she was forced to abandon. The Confession of Lily Dare is the latest comic melodrama written by and starring the legendary master of theatrical parody Charles Busch (Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, Die Mommie Die, The Divine Sister). Here he celebrates the gauzy "confession film" tearjerkers of early 1930's pre-code cinema, such as The Sin of Madelon Claudet, Frisco Jenny, and Madame X.

New York, 1948. Irish O'Flanagan is the tough as nails, red-headed headliner of the Club Intime. A lifetime of hard knocks has left her bitter and with a chip on her shoulder the size of Mount Rushmore. In the spirit of fantasies such as "A Christmas Carol," "It's a Wonderful Life" and "The Bishop's Wife," an angel in the form of a sexy vaudeville magician named Albert comes down to show Irish that the path she's been taking is leading her to disaster. He takes her on a journey that reveals that

The time: the fifties; the place: Hollywood, where film star Mary Dale finds the Red Menace invading her own Beverly Hills backyard. When she discovers that her husband has been lured into the local Communist party by way of a method acting class and that there is a left wing plot afoot to abolish the star system, Mary wages a private war to save her husband, her country and billing over the title. The McCarthy era is turned on its head in this novel take on a serious subject.

Imagine the outrageous Mae West in a Cecil B. DeMille biblical epic. Judith, a beautiful, wealthy young widow, is reviled by her own people as a gold digging adventuress. When her ancient city of Bethulia is facing brutal annihilation, Judith, wearing her most glittering finery, slips into the enemy camp, seduces and ultimately decapitates the ruthless General Holofernes. This wild homage to the Hollywood movie epic is the latest trip to the cinematic past by the author of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and The Divine Sister.

Characters: 3 male, 2 female Unit Set Olive Fisher is an elderly character actress whose claim to fame were the iconic "Gimme the Sausage" commercials of the 1980's. She's a classic New York curmudgeon, at war with the world and in particular her next door neighbors. Her closed-off life is shaken by the appearance of a spectral male figure viewed through her living room mirror. A series of strange and outrageous coincidences reveals that the man in the mirror has intimate links to everyone in Olive's world and most revealingly to Olive, encouraging her that it's never too late to change one's life. "A colorful, sweet-and-sour Busch dish, laced with plenty of laughs." ae' The Associated Press

ComedyCharacters: 1 male, 5 female

Multiple SetsThe Divine Sister is an outrageous comic homage to nearly every Hollywood film involving nuns. Evoking such films as The Song of Bernadette, The Bells of St. Mary's, The Singing Nun and Agnes of God, The Divine Sister tells the story of St. Veronica's indomitable Mother Superior who is determined to build a new school for her Pittsburgh convent. Along the way, she has to deal with a young postulant who is experiencing "visions," sexual hysteria among her nuns, a sensitive schoolboy in need of mentoring, a mysterious nun visiting from the Mother House in Berlin, and a former suitor intent on luring her away from her vows. This madcap trip through Hollywood religiosity evokes the wildly comic but affectionately observed theatrical style of the creator of Die, Mommie, Die and Psycho Beach Party."Cue the "Hallelujah" chorus Charles Busch has put on a nun's habit and is talking to God, from whom he has evidently received blessed counsel. The Divine Sister, his new comedy at the SoHo Playhouse, finds Mr. Busch at peak form. This gleefully twisted tale of the secret lives of nuns - in which the playwright doubles as leading lady - is Mr. Busch's freshest, funniest work in years, perhaps decades." --The New York Times

Comic melodrama.

Little Theatre.

Characters: 3 male. 3 female.

Interior set.

Newly revised! This comic melodrama evokes the 1960's movie thrillers that featured such aging cinematic icons as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner and Susan Hayward. Faded pop singer, Angela Andrews, is trapped in a corrosive marriage to film producer, Sol Sussman. In her attempt to find happiness with her younger lover, an out of work TV star, Angela murders her husband with the aid of a poisoned suppository. In a plot that reflects both Greek tragedy as well as Hollywood folklore, Angela's resentful daughter, Edith, convinces Angela's emotionally disturbed son, Lance, to avenge their father's death by killing their mother. Lance, demanding proof of Angela's crime, slips some LSD into her after-dinner coffee, triggering a wild acid trip that exposes all of Angela's dark secrets.

Comedy / Characters: 4m, 2f / Unit set A faded screenwriter in the 1940's woos her troubled ex-writer son into collaborating on a screen play. The gangster/sci fi B-movie in their imagination unfolds before us, involving a chic crime czarina, a beautiful but icy lady scientist and her failed and understandly bitter human cloning experiment. A third story is the Russian fairy tale the screenwriter told her son as a child about a painfully shy princess who forges a diabolical pact with a terrifying but surprisingly vulnerable old witch. The fairy tale inspires the movie which inspires the mother and son screenwriters to mend their fractured relationship. "Plays-within-plays require such intricate tailoring. So it's a pleasure to report that with The Third Story, the ever-captivating Charles Busch proves equally deft as both performer and seamstress." -Theatermania. "The main joy of The Third Story is that its foolery embodies something substantive...No wonder The Third Story feels like such an energizing event." -Village Voice.

Charles Busch is renowned for weaving popular culture, wicked camp humor, and biting social satire into an unusual and uproarious theatrical signature that has earned him the Outer Critics' John Gassner Award for Playwrighting and a Drama Desk Award for Best Play nomination. Of his latest play, The New York Times has written, "Uproarious . . . wall-to-wall laughs . . . Mr. Busch has swum straight into the mainstream and stays comfortably afloat there".

Busch is the author of such plays as Vampire Lesbians of Sodom -- one of the longest-running plays in Off-Broadway history -- and Psycho Beach Party, a cross between Gidget and Spellbound. After a successful Off-Broadway run at New York City's Manhattan Theater Club, Busch moves to Broadway with The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, a hilarious comedy about a self-absorbed Upper West Side doctor's wife whose life is devoted to mornings at the Whitney, afternoons at the Museum of Modern Art, and evenings at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Her world is shaken and transformed when a childhood friend makes an unexpected visit.

A poignant, deliciously anecdotal account of a talented artist's Oz-like journey in the worlds of Off-Broadway, Broadway, and Hollywood The Tony Award-nominated writer of The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife and the long-running hit Off-Broadway play Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, and a Sundance Festival award winner, Charles Busch has created a unique place in the entertainment world as a playwright, LGBT icon, drag actor, director, and cabaret performer, with his extraordinary gift for both connecting with and channeling the leading ladies of show business.  In wonderfully readable chapters, by turns comic and moving, Charles writes how ever since his mother's death when he was seven, he has sought out surrogate mothers in his life. In his teens, Charles moved to Park Avenue in Manhattan to live with his Auntie Mame-like Aunt Lil, who encouraged and nourished Charles’ talents and dreams, and eventually he discovered his gifts for writing plays and performing as a male actress. Busch also shares his colorful and sometimes outlandish interactions with film and theatrical luminaries including the hilarious comedian Joan Rivers (who became a mother figure to Charles after Aunt Lil’s death), Angela Lansbury (who attended her first Passover seder with Charles), Rosie O’Donnell, Claudette Colbert, Valerie Harper, Kim Novak, and many others.  Full of both humor and heart and featuring rare photos, Leading Lady is for readers of entertainment books as well as anyone who enjoys real-life stories of artists who break the mold, ditch the boundaries, and find their own unique way to sparkle.