'Mommie' Lives On

It was a herd of leading ladies paying tribute to one of their own. At the Off-Broadway preem of Charles Busch’s "Die Mommie Die!" the opening-night aud at New World Stages was chockablock with legit actresses who had either appeared in Busch’s other plays or co-starred with him or simply enjoyed his talent: Anna Deavere Smith, Sutton Foster, Julie Halston, Michele Lee, Kate Mulgrew, Joan Rivers, Marian Seldes and Karen Ziemba. Busch had preemed his Gothic-thriller spoof “Mommie!” in 1999 for L.A. audiences, but held off from bringing it to hometown turf.
“I didn’t take it seriously as a play,” he opines. There was a 2003 movie version, and then he did an Actor’s Fund perf last year. “It went well and I thought, Well,  maybe….” (R. Hofler)