Organization | Inducted 2026
Hell in a Handbag Productions was founded in 2001 to provide a safe, inclusive creative home for artists who did not fit the gender roles and expectations of a heteronormative society. Over 25 years, the Chicago theater company has created opportunities for LGBTQ+ performers and other theater professionals through productions centered on camp, drag, gender-fluid expression, larger-than-life characters, and queer voices.
Led by co-founder, Artistic Director, and playwright David Cerda, Handbag has presented more than 87 productions and created over 2,000 opportunities for actors, designers, playwrights, stage managers, technicians, and other theater professionals. The majority of these opportunities have benefited LGBTQ+ artists. Many graduates of DePaul University, Columbia College Chicago, Roosevelt University, and other Illinois theater programs received their first professional theater experience with the company.
Although Cerda serves as Handbag’s primary playwright, the company’s ensemble has remained central to its creative process. Workshops, table reads, and improvisation allow company members to contribute ideas, characters, humor, and lived experiences that become part of each production. Handbag’s work is dedicated to preserving, celebrating, and expanding queer camp, using comedy to address exclusion, challenge rigid gender roles, and affirm individuality and self-expression.
Among the company’s productions are the *The Golden Girls: The Lost Episodes* parody series, with original scripts by Cerda; *The Birds*, which transformed the Berger Park Coach House into a theater for the first time; *POSEIDON! An Upside Down Musical*, produced in Chicago and at the New York City Fringe Festival, where it won Best Ensemble; and *The Drag Seed*, presented in Chicago and at New York’s La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. Actress Tippi Hedren attended *The Birds* twice.
In December 2024, Handbag welcomed its 100,000th ticket buyer. The company has also used its productions to support Chicago LGBTQ+ nonprofits, helping raise more than $100,000 as of late 2025, including over $60,000 for GroceryLand and significant support for Gerber/Hart Library and Archives, the Legacy Project, Center on Halsted, and the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame. Today, Handbag is a working ensemble of 23 theater professionals.