Individual | Inducted 2024
Bonsai Bermúdez MSW is the co-founder and executive artistic director of the Youth Empowerment Performance Project (YEPP), a program creating a brave environment for LGBTQI+ youth experiencing homelessness to explore their history, investigate new ways to address their struggles, and celebrate their strengths through personal and community development programming that incorporates leadership through different forms of artistic expression.
Born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, Bermúdez earned a Master’s degree in Guidance and Counseling at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras with a concentration on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex issues, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Art and Humanities with a Major in Theatre and Dance and a Minor in Education.
Bermúdez has worked in social justice service for more than 20 years and in 2019 was honored with the Leadership in Community-Based Theatre and Civic Engagement Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE). He has served on the board of Orgullo en Acción, created to politically advocate for Chicago’s Latine LGBTQI+ communities, and for several years served as a Drop-in and Resource Advocacy Program Manager at the Broadway Youth Center, an organization serving LGBTQI+ youth experiencing housing instability in Chicago.