What better way to kick off the Festival than with Die, Mommie, Die! — Charles Busch's delightful parody/tribute to some of the films and film genres that we love best? Busch (Psycho Beach Party) turned himself into a New York theater icon by writing and starring in gender-bending camp-fests like Lesbian Vampires of Sodom and Shanghai Moon, then went on to write the smash "straight" stage hit, The Allergist's Wife. Now he returns to his gay roots with tongue (and other parts) firmly in cheek in this dazzlingly dizzy pastiche of all those movies — from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, to Valley of the Dolls, Dead Ringers, and more — that never quite made the critics' A list, but definitely earned a place in our hearts.

_Die, Mommie, Die! _stars Busch, alongside Jason Priestley, Natasha Lyonne, Philip Baker Hall, Nora Dunn, and Frances Conroy.