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PROVINCETOWN GUIDE
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| DIRECTORY |
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Provincetown :: Tuesday, February 9th 2010
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Thirsty Celebrates 20 Years on Stage
Catch Her at The Crown Thursday to Sunday
By Steve Desroches of Provincetown Magazine
July 2nd, 2009
Scott Townsend made his performance debut at six years old when he sang the Captain and Tennille’s “The Way I Want to Touch You” at the Camelot Lounge in West Yarmouth.
| “I really love what I do. I think people are starting to ‘get it’ more. For a while people, especially gay men, avoided drag thinking all they were going to see was a man, in a dress lip-synching badly. That’s changing, audiences are changing.” |
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Of course, back then, he was told he would need to change the words, “I never wanted to touch a man the way that I want to touch you.”
Bewildered by the request, like a dutiful performer he sang about his fictitious longings for a girl. But while the audience didn’t notice, he forgot a line and was devastated.
“I got a standing ovation,” says Townsend. “But I was so upset that I ran into the girls room, which should have been a red flag right there, and began to cry. All these women chased me in and said ‘Oh, honey, you were great! You were fabulous!’ And I thought ‘Oooh, I like this!’”
The seed for Thirsty Burlington was planted then. Now celebrating 20 years as a performer, Townsend, known just as easily as Thirsty around town, is performing the “best of the best” in The Thirsty Burlington Show at the Crown and Anchor (247 Commercial St., Provincetown), all summer long.
“I thought, ‘why don’t I put everyone’s favorites into one show’,” says Townsend. “For a while I was torn. ‘Do I want to do a lounge act or a show?’ And then I decided to do it all. And it’s a lot on my plate, but I am a stronger performer for it.”
This is not the first time Townsend has decided to “do it all” and came out stronger. Born poor and living in a public housing project in Cambridge, Townsend was bullied for his feminine appearance and behavior early in life.
“I was teased relentlessly,” says Townsend. “I used to cut my eyelashes to try to look less feminine.”
However, he was always recognized for his singing. His passion for performance and singing faded, though as he grew more and more afraid to go to school. And soon he stopped going, skipping days here and there until it added up to over a seven-year period.
“I was sent to reform school,” says Townsend. “I was treated like a bad kid when I was just trying to get away from the harassment and be safe.”
With the constant bullying and no adult intervention, like many LGBT youth, Townsend tried to commit suicide, stabbing himself in the stomach with a woodcarving tool he found in shop class. He spent the next year at the North Shore Children’s Hospital’s psychiatric ward.
“And I loved it,” says Townsend. “I had nurses taking care of me, people making me meals, and I was in a safe place. I used to lie to the psychiatrists so I could stay longer. They would show me an ink blot and ask me what I saw and I would say stuff like, ‘It’s a dead rat killing my mother’.”
Diagnosed with dyslexia, Townsend was sent to a private school in Franklin, MA, that not only gave him the educational support he needed, but also appreciated his talents. The school principal used to pull him out of class and request Barbra Streisand songs.
“There I blossomed,” says Townsend. “I wasn’t afraid anymore.”
A teacher, Ms. Susan Freeman, seeing the talent and drive in Townsend one day tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Join the drama club.” She supported and lovingly pushed Townsend to explore the world of theater and performance, and to love himself in the process.
Soon he was being cast in the leads of the school productions, even if it was a female role.
“I got the lead in our production of the The Wiz,” says Townsend. “They changed the character’s name from Dorothy to Roger and I wore ruby sneakers instead of slippers.”
Taking characters and putting his own stamp on them is something that Thirsty Burlington has mastered over the past 20 years. Judy Garland, Cher, Michael Jackson – Townsend captures the essence of these well-known figures, mixing comedic elements with sincere homage. Last month, Burlington bounded on to the Showgirls stage as Little Edie Beale and performed a number from the Broadway musical Grey Gardens. He had actually done that number several years ago at the A-House. The Broadway show had yet to be a hit, and the new film with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange was still years away. The Maysles brothers’ 1975 documentary had fallen from fashion except for die-hard fans.
“Everyone was like, ‘What the #$%& is Thirsty doing?’” says Townsend. “But people loved the number. And then Grey Gardens came back into the public eye. The timing was perfect.”
Thirsty’s timing is always perfect. A movement here, a look there drives the performance to a new level. The insatiable curiosity of his subjects drives Townsend to experiment, try new things, resulting in memorable Thirsty moments over the years: Performing Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” as Judy Garland with the band Space Pussy, singing “Go Ask Liza” instead of Alice; Hitting the stage at the A-House as Amy Winehouse with ratted hair and smoky eyes; And then there’s the night at Showgirls years ago, when Thirsty and Joanna James performed a surprise rendition of “Happy Days Are Here Again,” the hard-to-find duet done by a 19-year-old Barbra Streisand with Judy Garland in the early 1960’s. To this day, people are still talking about this performance. And plans for a reunion are in the works.
Twenty years of pushing himself as a performer and pulling audiences in to see something new and different hasn’t changed Townsend’s view of his work that much.
“For me nothing has changed,” says Townsend. “I really love what I do. I think people are starting to ‘get it’ more. For a while people, especially gay men, avoided drag thinking all they were going to see was a man, in a dress lip-synching badly. That’s changing, audiences are changing.”
That special light that burned inside Townsend as a child, one that was almost extinguished by people blinded by their own hate and intolerance, survived and now thrives as he presents his creativity and confidence to his audience – an act of revolution, really, in itself. Loving oneself is the best defense against bigots. And one night, not long ago, Townsend received a reminder as to how important it is to be oneself, and then spread that message. He was performing one night in Provincetown when a woman came right up to him, face to face. She stood there for a moment and then said, “Who am I?”
“I don’t know,” Townsend remembers saying.
He looked again. It was Ms. Freeman.
“Tears began to roll down my face,” says Townsend. “I grabbed her and said ‘If it wasn’t for you I was going to kill myself.’ She really saved my life.”
The Thirsty Burlington Show runs Thursday-Sunday at 10:30 p.m. at the Cabaret at the Crown and Anchor, 247 Commercial St., Provincetown, throughout the summer. For tickets and more information call 508.487.1430 or visit www.onlyatthecrown.com.
Also visit ProvincetownMagazine.net for more articles and information.
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