Celebrated drag performer, actor and playwright Charles Busch will finish the work-in-progress premiere of his latest comedy, Shanghai Moon, Feb. 14. Directed by Carl Andress and starring the author, Moon began performances Jan. 20, 1999 at Theatre for the New City.

No official opening night was set for Shanghai Moon because Busch considers the piece a work in progress. According to a spokesperson at Keith Sherman Associates, the show is very likely to surface again in a larger-scale mounting. No further details are yet available about those plans.

Shanghai Moon is only the latest playwriting effort by Busch, who first made his name as a performer in such camp spoofs as Vampire Lesbians of Sodom , The Lady in Question and Red Scare at Sunset. After last year's ambitious but poorly-received Queen Amarantha, Shanghai marks Busch's return to that sort of outlandish material. A parody of 1930's movie melodramas such as "Shanghai Express," the play is about Lady Sylvia Allington, the glamorous wife of a British diplomat. Sylvia sets off international fireworks when she takes up with a Chinese warlord.

The cast features Sekiya Billman, Becky London, Jodie Lynne McClintock, Marcy McGuigan and James Saito.

Other Busch works include Queen Amarantha staged at the WPA Theatre, and the musical The Green Heart at Manhattan Theatre Club. For information on Shanghai Moon call (212) 254-1109.

-- By Robert Simonson and David Lefkowitz