Charles Busch

Following in the footsteps of the late Charles Ludlum, founder of New York's Ridiculous Theatre Company, which honed camp and cross-dressing into a comic art in the 1960s and '70s, self-described "gender illusionist" Charles Busch drew inspiration from movie and stage divas of yore and created complex female characterizations, not just a cabaret drag persona. In 1984, he formed Theatre-in-Limbo with a group of friends and began performing his wonderfully-titled plays like "Kiss the Blood Off My Castanets" at NYC's Limbo Lounge. "Vampire Lesbians of Sodom" became such a hit there that it moved in 1985 to the historic Provincetown Playhouse, where it played for five years, becoming one of the longest-running non-musicals in Off-Broadway history. A 2000-year-old lesbian in that one, he also scored as Chicklet, a teenager with a multiple personality disorder, in "Psycho Beach Party" (1987), which he would retool for his first screenwriting credit in 2000.