Caged Dames

Back by popular demand, Hell in a Handbag Productions presents the remount of the critically acclaimed Caged Dames, a shocking new musical in two acts from the mind of Chicago’s David Cerda, author of the critically acclaimed POSEIDON! An Upside- Down Musical and The Birds (A Feminist Drag Hitchcock Deconstruction).

The show tells the gripping tale of an innocent young woman, Mary Anderson, who – through a series of unfortunate events – finds herself in the Calumet City Women’s Penitentiary at the mercy of the sadistic, oyster loving prison matron, Elsie Emerson, and her sniveling, love struck sidekick, Schnitzy. Mary seeks solace with the seemingly sympathetic Warden Hope but soon learns the gritty ins and outs of prison life thanks to Big Lorraine, the tough as nails “Queen Bee” of the Calumet City Women’s Penitentiary, and the rest of the colorful denizens of Cellblock H.

Caged Dames is inspired by the black and white noir prison films of the ’40s and ’50s, particularly 1950’s Caged.