Charles Busch and Julie Halston: Psychos, Vampires and Addams Family Values.By Brian Kirst
(Charles Busch and Julie Halston will be performing at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln, Chicago, IL on Monday December 7th at 7:30 PM. Tickets are $30-$35.)
While director, playwright and performer Charles Busch is best known as a theatrical artist working, primarily, in drag – his connection to the horror world is also quite substantial.
While truly a camp riot his seminal production, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, also amusedly nodded to blood sucking legends throughout the centuries, eventually distinguishing itself as Busch’s entry into the uppermost heights of the board hopping vanguard.
Further stage shows in the Busch canon (often featuring his muse Julie Halston) also featured compelling attributes from genre films, receiving titles such as Psycho Beach Party and Die, Mommy, Die (both eventually made into films featuring Busch).
This pedigree surely helped solidified Busch and Halston’s entry into scare comedy filmdom with amusing cameos in Addams Family Values in the early 1990’s. This feat truly proved that the horror community can exist on many levels and that fey boy comedy can exist as successfully in its bloody arms as marauding n’ macho villains slinging hatchets.
Busch (currently touring a show about his creative life and extremely close interaction with Halston) is a legend in the theatrical community, but one look at his quirky, occasionally grue strewn resume proves that he should be one in the horror community, as well.
