By Alix Cohen
Charles Busch is one of our great storytellers, conquering high and low with imagination, skill, and irrepressible pleasure. Songs arrive parlando- part acted, part sung. Stories are organically imbued with humor and heart. Lyrics in this review are Johnny Mercer’s.
A bound onto the stage is immediately countered by Busch’s tender, focused gaze. “Skylark” (Hoagy Carmichael) emerges rapt, shimmering.The club stills. Without warning, the artist then erupts into a scrappy “Blues in the Night.” (Harold Arlen) His left hand punctuates, the right, rotates; lyrics are are spit.“My mutha was right!”
“The great Johnny Mercer wrote over 1700 songs, recording many of them himself. He was the poet laureate of Savannah, Georgia. That’s all you’re gonna hear about him. I’d really rather talk about myself.” Tongue firmly in cheek, Busch does just that. He even lists awards, somehow in a way that doesn’t sound like braggadocio.
“Charlie’s Not So Blues” (music & lyrics Charles Busch/Jono Mainelli) is specialty material. “I love my love/And I’m crazy about my drag…” Mainelli sings back-up. It will surprise no one that lyrics are honest and clever.
“Charade” (Henry Mancini) floats in like fog. Piano music is dark, haunting, almost an invocation; vocal like flannel. A dulcet “Moon River” (Henry Mancini –Breakfast at Tiffany’s) is accompanied on acoustic guitar by Busch’s nephew, Jimmy Stull, who began on stage as Patrick to his uncle’s Auntie Mame.
The artist affectionately introduces comedienne Ashley Austin Morris, whom he’s known and cast for years. Back then, she kept a notebook. A glimpse revealed “Today Charles called me a cunt. I think he likes me!” “I have a sensitive way of dealing with young people,” Busch deadpans. Morris is quick and contemporary.
Dear friend and longtime company member Andy Halliday (recently passed) once rescued the performer by teaching him a dance combination despite self-avowed “ineptitude.” “Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry” (Victor Schwezinger- The Fleet’s In) is a wry, perturbed turn. Noel Coward would have raised an appreciative eyebrow.
Like Mercer a great admirer of Judy Garland, Busch breaks his own rule about not singing her songs to offer “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe.” (Harold Arlen – The Harvey Girls) ‘Not the 12 minute film version, but the one Garland sang on her television show. Starting long-lined, piano evokes chuffing wheels as they gain momentum. Busch effusively bounces, steps in time, and slaps a stool; his head “bobbles.” “Whoo hoo hoo hoo hoo!” Phrasing is the performer’s evocative own.
“I Wonder What Became of Me” wafts. (Harold Arlen- St. Louis Woman) “I can’t explain/It’s the same old champagne…” He’s Chaplinesque.Chopin’s Nocturne leads to a subdued “I’m Old Fashioned” (Jerome Kern- You Were Never Lovelier) Busch sings as if confiding, giving simple lyrics their full due. It’s somehow heartbreaking.
Never miss a Busch show.
Photos by Conor Weiss
Charles Busch Sings Johnny Mercer
MD/Piano- Jono Mainelli
Featuring Ashley Austin Morris and Jimmy Stull
September 11, 2026
54Below 254 West 54th Street
Venue Calendar: https://54below.org/calendar/
