These blogs are to celebrate 25yrs, each one has been long because each production has a long tail, the process to co-create is specialist, collaborative, considered and with an aim to make social change. It involves 100’s of women speaking to thousands, the roll and gather through the productions creative and Changing Worlds. By the time we reach 2014 we have been co-creating work with communities of women for 16yrs.
So where to start.
Key Change (2014 to present day)
I am reading old blogs written in 2014 onwards, looking to see what I have shared before about Key Change. I see us celebrating our 18th and 20th Birthday. In one blog I’m 55 thinking about being 60 (I’m now 60). I see Christmas blogs, offices closing, winding up and down again, the ebb and flow of Open Clasp. I have written many times about Key Change, Rattle Snake and Sugar chapters in books, shared academic papers, interviews and blogs
Its 2014 and Key Change is a small project, a commission to work with women inside prison, support them to create a show and for this show to then be toured to the male prisons – January to June 2014, six months.
This is the moment that the legend that is Laura Lindow joins the company. As I said in the previous blog, we were busy creating a show with young women in collaboration with Frantic Assembly.
It was the first time Laura and I had worked together (though we had ran a drama club at West End Women & Girls Centre back in the day) it was our first time working to co-create a show together, and the first time we had a director embedded the workshops.
We knew from the beginning that we wouldn’t have equipment for the tour, so no lights or sound as such, or set. We selected the first team to include a choreographer and we were joined by the legend that is Jess Johnson, this was phase one.
The workshops took place every Friday in the prison chapel and started on the 7th February 2014. This was also my 21st anniversary and the next day my wife and I had a civil partnership – now we have been together 31yrs and 10yrs civil, and since this project we have been working inside HMP Lower Newton for 10yrs.
We used our methodology over four weeks, every Friday, meeting in the morning and then again in the afternoon. Once the workshops were completed I went away and wrote in response to the women and workshops, Key Change.
My writing changes here, Key Change is my first one act play and its stripped back to pure story telling – the issues aren’t threaded into a bigger epic story with two acts and a traditional formula. Here I give thanks to Laura, a writer herself and an excellent dramaturg. From this moment I put formula down and I write for the next 10 yrs with my instinct, I trust my gut, experience to response and skill in storytelling. But it’s this meeting of two with Laura and I that propels me down this path.
Phase Two – the production. This took place over eight weeks, again meeting once a week. The chapel now a rehearsal room, Laura taking the reins, me as support and the team now includes actor Cheryl Dixon and stage manager Kate Lewis. The women became performers.
On the first day we shared the script with the women, in the afternoon I was called to the governors office, he wasn’t keen on the script, and I felt quite devastated and triggered (class). He sat and turned the pages looking for inaccuracies and errors. I asked him to join the rehearsals, to see what they women where achieving, and he did. He came and still struggled, it was a risk, public opinion and press ringing in his ears, that and the depictions of drug taking and grafting. We (the commissioners and all parties involved) needed him to endorse it so it could go into the male prisons.
Its the 6th June 2014 and the women gather in the chapel, the audience. Our actors and first time actors are on stage, Key Change. The play is endorsed.
The legends that are Judi Earl and Christina Dawson join the team and we tour Key Change to HMP Frankland, Durham, back to Frankland, HMP Deerbolt and back to the women in HMP Low Newton (there we shared the men’s response). The next day we showcased Key Change at Live Theatre.
Abigail Bryon was in the audience, her mum was one of the women we worked with on Key Change, still inside. We recognised her, she us and she recognised her mum in the play, her story told and voices of all the women singing.
When Cheryl Byron was released later that year, we went on to work with Cheryl and Abigail to create the award winning show ‘don’t forget the birds’ which toured nationally in 2018 (in the next blog).
Cheryl and Abigail are Gold Star Members with Open Clasp (a collective made up of co-creators who went the extra mile and who we continue to work with).
We decided that Key Change was a perfect show for The Edinburgh Festival. We had never been there before and the risks many but taken. We opened with good audiences to sell out and then we won the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award in 2015, the prize a three and a half week run off Broadway in New York
I’ve told the story many times but it’s hard not to write it now, so I will. The night before the award ceremony we took the show into a women’s prison in Stirling, the women were on the feet shouting, ‘I’m Angie’, Key Change was their story too. We told them about the award, and that if we did win, we would let them know. And we did win.
Key Change connected women in prison from the North East to Scotland and then New York (we took the show into York Correctional facility) – the women won that award, their voices heard, and they could hear each other, different and but also the same, the life that leads to prison, the same.
But it wasn’t necessarily a Cinderella moment as I explain in the blog below
New York – Key Change received the New York Times Critics pick, which was great, you can’t change the world if the theatre isn’t the best it can possibly be but as much as we all breathed a sigh of relief, we wanted to replicate what we do best here, and that’s gather in rooms with likeminded activists, using the theatre and post-show discussions to build power.
Professor Evan Stark joins our post show panels. This connection is made via Prof Nicole Westmarland from Rattle Snake (see below). On stage Evan talks about how prisons compound their experience of coercive control, women in prison, same as outside – women re-traumatized.
It was such an honour to be in his company, his wife too and I was really saddened to hear of his death earlier this year, really sad, he was a good man.
Professor Rosemary Barberet – I’d met Professor Maggie O’Neill back in 2012 after emailing saying how much I loved reading her book ‘Asylum, Migration and Community’ (I was working on The Space Between Us (voices of minoritized, including those seeking asylum) – this was 2011/12). Maggie had emailed back, saying she had seen Rattle & Roll in 2011 in Durham, had loved it. Just before New York, I’d also worked with Maggie on Rattle Snake (see below).
Maggie introduced me to Prof Rosemary Barberet in New York, Rosemary joined Evan on stage with our panels, and she also ‘broke’ us into a women’s prison over there – the governor appeared, began pacing as the women got to their feet shouting, ‘This shite is Global’.
Key Change came home and then toured nationally in 2016, starting at the House of Parliament, and we were joined by Cheryl Byron (original Key Change cast from HMP Low Newton), Clean Break and Baroness Corston for our post show panel (please click on the link below).
Key Change was commissioned by The Space in 2017, filmed by the BBC and streamed across the world in the November of that year and after three years the actors took their final bow.
Key Change still flies across the world, and there are plans afoot for this show, plus others from our catalogue to be accessible globally (watch this space).
Key Change came from the wings while we had Jumping Puddles on stage, and a small, low budget commission became the show that took us by the hand and elevated us not only on a national platform but internationally too.
Laura became our Associate Director, and we went on to work together on Sugar, don’t forget the birds, Lasagna and finally her last production with the company Mycelial 2024. Laura was our Associate Director for 10yrs.
Carol Tambor has remained a constant, is now one of our Patrons and only last year travelled over to see Mycelial performed at Northern Stage.
Rattle Snake 2015 to the present day
Rattle Snake, like Key Change came out of the wings and became a huge success for the company. Charlotte Bennet was the director and it was her last show with us but Charlotte didn’t go far and is a member of our Board of Trustees.
Rattle Snake was created during the lead up to our tour of New York with Key Change (a sandwich between Edinburgh and New York) and it continues to be showcased to audiences around the world to this day.
And it began with Professor Nicole Westmarland, Professor Maggie O’Neill and Kate Butterworth. They identified a gap in police understanding of coercive controlling behaviour, raised funds and commissioned Open Clasp. They wanted to measure the impact of using a creative response when training officers, as surveys suggested a death by PowerPoint wasn’t working.
I read their research, interviewed survivors of coercive controlling behaviours who had participated and wrote Rattle Snake in response. Working collaboratively with Nicole, Maggie and Kathryn we used Open Clasp methodology to create an interactive drama workshop to support officers to step into the shoes of the stories being told.
The Training – The actors with the initial show was the Legends that are Kathryn Beaumont and Eilidh Talman. This was our first-time training police. The show was live, with a short break, then officers worked creatively up on their feet, debating and concluding on the issues being raised.
But the first workshop didn’t’ go so well, the police challenged the tone and/or our understanding of what it’s like to be a police officer and threw down challenge for us to join them on a night shift out on the vans on a Saturday night, which we accepted. And in part it did help, we learnt, amended the plans and the second and subsequent workshops went from strength to strength.
The partnership of working to deliver alongside researchers/academics and experts such as Independent Domestic Violence Advocates (IDVA), started here and to this day is why are delivery of training is so strong.
I wanted to take a moment to thank Kathryn Beaumont and Eilidh Talman, as each week they powered through an intense performance, had a short break then worked for two hours running workshops with the police. They were incredible and this built the foundations that enabled the company to go on to train 1000’s of police (all ranks) and multiple agencies.
Once the project was over and we were back from New York we developed Rattle Snake to include a family court scene, recast (due to work commitments), replacing Kathryn Beaumont with Christina Dawson and toured nationally in 2017 and 2018, with post show panels made up of experts winning awards and critical acclaim.
The show was then filmed, and we were commissioned again to train the Cleveland Police force. We trained 1,600 of the force, all ranks, plus multi agencies in 2018/19. We trained in partnership with West End Women & Girls and the youngest IDVA’s in the country, the legends that are Laura Christer and Rochelle Artus.
Rattle Snake kept rolling – During the pandemic we adapted the methodology to deliver the training online with staff from the Durham County Council.
It was translated into Brazilian Portuguese and performed in Brazil.
To this day it’s used as part of a Safe 4 Life programme supporting survivors of domestic violence and abuse.
Professor Maggie O’Neill continues showcase Rattle Snake in Ireland and it sits centre stage with a call for justice.
“The women in the Open Clasp production walked right out of the pages of my book. The characters come alive, elicit compassion, cry out for justice. We feel the magic go out of them. The play compels discussion and response. This is living theatre at its best.” Evan Stark, expert on coercive control and writer of Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life (Interpersonal Violence)
We continue to work alongside researchers at Durham University, first with Alisha’s story, co-created with women who are learning disabled, who have experienced rape or sexual assault and created to train frontline officers. And Rupture a production created with mothers incarcerated who have had multiple children removed into the care system and/or at risk of (later blogs).
SUGAR – I remember in 2016 we were in the prison when the country votes to leave the European Union, its my birthday on the 24th June 2016
I haven’t managed to keep this short, so if anyone is still with me, next I’m going to talk about Sugar.
We had formed a relationship with the community of women in prison and we wanted to continue this, so in 2016 (with very little funding) we went back into HMP Low Newton to work with another group of women. We also worked with a group of women on probation at West End Women & Girls and women living in a hostel providing emergency accommodation on Manchester.
I put the Brexit vote date in the title because it was also my birthday on the 24th June and we were working inside the prison, it was the last workshop for phase one.
Again, I have written often about this project and delivered a TEDx Talk about this moment too.
That year started and ended with funerals, and included a violent crime being committed against someone close in my family.
I lead on workshops, my lens and ears wide and awake, asking ‘how do you survive the unimaginable’ and they do, the women and us. We (Laura Lindow and I) started the workshops in Manchester, working at Women’s Direct Access Centre. Each night we met in the canteen, the women working creatively up on their feet, the process democratic and building power. After each workshop we eat a meal together.
Prof Maggie O’Neill joins us towards the end of the week’s residency, and we walk with the women, drawing maps and then out onto the street. As we walk to Piccadilly Gardens against a sea of people, we walk in the shoes of one of our co-creators, a parallel world with many forks in the road.
This method of walking (Maggie’s) then informs the monologue I write in response to our time spent with the women, it’s the first of three.
Our next group is the women in prison, and they create Julie. They ask and answer questions, and they go there, unlike Key Change who made a nod to childhood sexual abuse, they wanted to stop, rewind and explore what life was like for their character, the child – the biggest question was ‘did her mother know what the father was doing’. And we/they chased that question until one session and it was answered, and in that moment the energy shifted in the room, anger turning into something else less harmful (to them).
Our third group is women on probation here at the centre we are based at. It was in a time when probation was contracted out, and the hub felt problematic to the women – they felt some workers patronized them and they didn’t’ trust the system to share their worries or concerns, with mental health or a multitude of issues, they feared too many consequences. Their character was Annie, then they called her poor Annie – the story involving social workers who side with perpetrators and the loss of children (this resonates with all the groups worked with on Sugar – and we pick this theme up later in our work with Lasagna 2021 – 2023 and our current project Rupture which will tour spring 2025).
I’d written three monologues in response to each group, so again not a traditional play, but these three stories are at the same time one – life that leads to prison and the revolving door that bounces them back again.
We first showcase the scripts to each group and then tour Sugar in development in 2017 – you can read below I carried a worry monster on my shoulders throughout
Sugar in development was performed in HMP Low Newton and it was the first-time women walked out, triggered and upset.
The chapel was packed, doors opened wide – after Key Change the anticipation high, the trust strong. It was like a domino, one woman stood, and another followed, and it wasn’t necessarily the scenes that talked about abuse, it was the loss of a nana, the hurt and grief triggered. It was hard to witness but many lessons learnt. We had worked hard with the prison staff on the invited audience of women, careful to select, the issues raw and confronting (you have to be brave to talk about childhood sexual abuse, the women were, so we had to be).
But as I said the doors were flung too wide, many of the women had no idea what the play was about. Even though we all thought the bases were covered mistakes were made, and it was hard to witness, we at Open Clasp strive to ensure audiences safe and this time, it went wrong (not for everyone) but for some it did. To this day we work tightly with the prison on who should attend e.g. Lasagna and Rupture last year.
Next steps with Sugar =
Building on our success with Key Change and its film, Laura, Carly McConnell (Senior Creative Producer) decided to create a theatrical piece of theatre for film, so not a filmed/capture, but to work differently with Katja Roberts (Meerkat Films – who had worked with us from Swags & Tails, on short LGBT films, Jumping Puddles and Rattle Snake). Starting together to create.
The approach was new to many of those in the creative team that gathered around a big table at Live Theatre, and it took collaboration, communication, negotiation, risk and innovation.
In 2019 new actors to Open Clasp join the family, Paislie Reid, Taja Luegaezor Christian and work alongside Zoe Lambert and Christina Dawson (both now Associates with Open Clasp). There is a cinema tour planned for 2020, and the pandemic hits. But the BBC iPlayer commission Sugar and it’s showcased throughout 2020/21, reaching thousands of audiences in their own homes and used with organisations nationally to train staff and agitate for change. Sugar continues to roll to this day.
