While I have known Bianca Leigh for many years, and heard her perform "standards" in several venues, I felt privileged to get an inside look at the real life of Bianca Leigh, when she offered her play, "A Night at the Tombs," presented by Theatre Askew, at Cherry's on August 24. She 'had me at' the set...simply a red bench and a roll of toilet paper on a mike stand on the Cherry's stage. And Bianca, while always elegant and good looking, entered looking absolutely ravishing in red leather.

The play tells of one night in her life in March 1987-over 23 years ago-when she was busted for prostitution in New York City and sent to the dreaded Tombs-now closed and no doubt turned into a fancy co-op. She describes it as "one of the 'Oh, Shit' Moments," as opposed to the Aha! Moments.

As a young transsexual, with a BFA in acting from Rutgers' Mason Gross School of the Arts, she realizes her "penis stands in the way, but would have been good in Shakespearean times." Of course, Bianca had lived with this "problem" from early childhood, enduring a life filled with "stealth and subterfuge," as so many out gay people of any gender will understand.

She then takes us into her life of fantasy, which I found far more intimate and animated than her usual singing performances. She talked of her move to New York and her discoveries of the world of transgender. Sex changes are expensive and as a young girl, she realized, "who wants a Medicaid pussy anyway."

She soon learned that "beauty paid the rent" and that, in addition to her day job at Macy's, she could supplement her income by working at Show World. But soon she found that there was "gender apartheid in the porn world," with real women getting paid before the trannies were. And then, at the Hellfire Club, she met Fleur de Lis, an older dominatrix, who took her in, and took her on. Bianca was proud to say that in the '80s, she was already "pioneering safe sex " with her clients.

She told of sad, poignant moments "when fake love was returned, if only for a moment"-and many in the audience knew that pain. She did scenes for money, and explained the "no fucking" as a result of "a horrible car accident...where I flew one way and my pussy flew the other."

It all came crashing to a halt with "entrapment by an insanely handsome undercover cop," who had requested and paid for a blow job, apparently never delivered. Ironic, isn't it? If he had asked her to dinner and spent perhaps far more than he paid, then gotten a "good night kiss," it would have been dating. So who hasn't been a prostitute, I wonder.

As she was hauled off to the Tombs, she was spared some of the harshness by being placed in a special cell for gays and trannies. Some of inmates faked being gay to get the softer treatment and some treated her like a lady. She says that "chivalry is not dead...it's in jail!" as she and some of the others helped each other as best they could. She marveled at the dinner fare in jail-"bologna sandwiches and tea! Who the fuck thought of that!"

She realized she was still a homo-like us all!-with as much right as anyone. This became Bianca's Aha! Moment, and she turned the bench on its side to reveal the word FREEDOM carved in it's top-okay, it was silver gaffing tape, but, hey, it was Cherry's! The audience, moved and thoughtful, exploded and Bianca owned the stage!

Bianca Leigh wrote and performed the show, but she did not create this show all by herself. Tim Cusack, who has worked and acted with Bianca before, directed and developed the show, The songs are all original, with Bianca and Tim having written some of the lyrics, along with other lyricists and/or composers Jeff Domoto, Jeff Whitty, Gino Paoli, Ellen Maddow, Taylor Mac, the team of Isam Rum and Matty Pritchard, and Super Buddha. Costumes were by Machine Dazzle, stage management and lighting design by Annie-Sage Whitehurst, and the producer was Jason Jacobs, in association with Spin Cycle and the Bowery Poetry Club.

There was quite a crowd around Bianca as she left in her red leather and I thought I am glad to know her. She bares her soul, sharing with us a painful night decades ago, to cleanse herself of the darkness, and make us all realize how far we have come and how much we need to stick together. Thank you, Bianca, for trusting us.

Bianca may repeat "A Night at the Tombs," which came to Cherry's directly from a run at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City, at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, on West 42nd Street, this fall and winter. Watch for further details.