Danne W. Taylor Archives - Chicago Reader

Eight actors stand in a line, holding onto each other from behind and facing to the left. They are in various costumes, including festive holiday outfits, a nun's habit, a nurse's uniform, and at the end, a man dressed in a sparkly fish costume.

The Golden Girls camp up Christmas

by Josh Flanders December 7, 2022December 7, 2022

Now in its 21st year, Hell in a Handbag Productions has a ridiculously hilarious new show playing at the Center on Halsted in their The Golden Girls: The Lost Episodes series subtitled The Obligatory Holiday Special. With the holidays looming, December is a time to see happy, funny shows, and Golden Girls does not disappoint. […]

A drawing-room setting. Six people in evening clothes and feathers are seated in a semi-circle in the rear. A man in a combination of plaids is doing a chicken impression before them.

Theater Review

Flying feathers

by Dan Jakes June 30, 2022July 25, 2022

There are a lot of substantive and weighty criticisms to be levied at the RuPaul’s Drag Race franchise and its global juggernaut influence over drag culture. Then there are petty ones, like mine: the series sucks at showcasing scripted camp. Nothing hushes even the most raucous, shoulder-to-shoulder packed bar viewing parties quite like the competition’s […]

Man in drag as Joan Crawford stands center, with actors kneeling or standing in the background

Theater Review

Joan-sing for the holidays

by Albert Williams December 8, 2021December 8, 2021

Hell in a Handbag Productions’ campy spoof of A Christmas Carol replaces miserly moneylender Ebenezer Scrooge with hard-hearted Hollywood icon Joan Crawford, played by author (and Hell in a Handbag artistic director) David Cerda. In Cerda’s reworking of Charles Dickens’s behavior-modification fable, Joan—a tyrannical, tough-as-nails diva who abuses everyone around her, including her loyal personal […]