He followed it up with popular pantomimes, which traditionally include a drag role, and "The Danny La Rue Show," a revue seen by more than a million people in its two years at the Palace Theater.
And, more ambitiously, a regular hosting gig on Saturday Night Live and a barnstorming drag role on To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar – "Ready or not, here comes mama... ..
Mr. Busch dons a nun's wimple to star as Mother Superior, his latest drag role in a celebrated career in New York theater, where he is best known for his works "Vampire Lesbians of Sodom" and "Die Mommie Die!" His foray onto Broadway as a playwright also yielded a hit in 2000, "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife".
"When we first did 'Vampire Lesbians,' Ken and I thought, 'What would we like to see at midnight in the East Village?' Of course, you'd want something campy and sexy, cute people with not too much on, and a flamboyant drag role for myself.
"Screen Test No. 2," also starring Mr. Montez, was based Mr. Tavel's concept of the actor's drag persona auditioning for the role of Esmeralda in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame".
And there are individual performers who you always look out for on stage – like Julie Shanahan, blonde, rail-thin, tightly wired and hilarious, and Andrey Berezin, genius of drag-queen roles, who can extract wild hauteur from the most bizarre of outfits.
Furthermore, this potential drag reduction role may help to explain why many bat species that lack a large tail membrane, still posses small fringes of skin around the back of the body and legs.
Perhaps the whole film is spiritually in drag: every female role should be played by a man.
Among the contenders must be Anthony Hoggard, appearing in his sixth Playhouse pantomime and already in drag in the role of the giant's wife.
