The is the last blog in the series of blogs to celebrate 25yrs of Open Clasp Changing the World One Play at a Time. Back in 2016 we had been invited to perform an extract from Rattle & Roll and lead on a workshop at the North East Sex Work Forum. It was at this moment that my ears tuned into a debate with two camps of thought around sex work, one concerning the Nordic Model, a law created to support sex workers to exit sex work by criminalizing the sex buyer and the other the agitates for the decriminalisation of sex work, so taking criminality out of sex work altogether (more complex but as a summary). The camps were/are divided but share the same aim to end violence against sex workers – two different objectives and often toxic. I asked if we at Open Clasp could help – through the creation of a piece of theatre audiences feel empathy and change happens – post show panels and/or workshops create a safe space for discussion and debate.
It’s 2020 and as the sun rises for Open Clasp it starts its journey to sunset in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It’s August and the world is gripped by a global pandemic and we are working online with a group of sex worker activists from the New Zealand Sex Worker Collective. It’s our first time with our methodology adapted for online with our rooms now a zoom.
We spend eight weeks waking at 4.30am, gathering with the group at 6am, creating character, poetry and stories. The women meet us in their offices, cars, hostels and bedrooms. They are in two’s or on their own. Our first question, the warmup is ‘if you didn’t live where you live now, and lockdown was to happen again where would you like to be living and why’. We learn about place, first love, Māori/Polynesian culture, lockdown and alerts (way before we had) and life before and after decriminalisation of sex work. The group create, paint pictures, write dialogue and place words. They draw, dress and clothe their character/s. They draw maps, recreate night walks, teddy bears and their characters dog. They create Erana and then Jessica, they need two to capture the diversity and lived experience of the women in the group. When the workshops conclude we eat cake together, the same culture as when working with a group live and in the room. We/they send photographs of the cakes and empty plates.
Our next group is women from Wolverhampton and those living in the North East via Girls Are Proud (GAP and Changing Lives). It’s October 2020. The women in Wolverhampton are supported to turn on the zoom, they create and talk with those from the North. The two women from the North stay the course. We are all writing, their stories echo entrapment to escape, they plan their escape and survive. They recreate kitchens, favourite food – we taste Moussaka, smoke and count stairs and stars. They are writers. Poetry is written and played on the Millenium Bridge for International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. It’s now Christmas and I say goodbye. During the workshops I’ve been diagnosed with Breast Cancer, I need an operation in January, then radiotherapy. I close my computer/laptop/notebooks and go home to fairy lights, my beautiful wife and dog Buster.
It’s now August 2021 and I’m out the other side of cancer, back at work but staggered, taking Lasagna first and now back to Mycelial. I/we are now in the North of Ireland; this is where we find the title of the production (Mycelial). We had asked the same question as the previous groups, where would you be if lockdown where to happen again. We find ourselves in a garden, with large and beautiful mushrooms, poetry that captures rage and activism, voice and call to arms ‘we are ‘fucking everywhere’. In these workshops we find the moon, hope, stockings pulled, whorephobia, stigma, strength, new shoes and harmonies.
In September we start with the ‘Cork’ group that was never a group from Cork but our independent advisor helped set up the group and she lived in Cork, so it became the Cork group but they lived and were from many different places. The first workshop was full of rooms that popped up on zoom, like windows opening and shutting. Some getting ready for work, others enjoying time out of lives that are hectic and full of responsibilities. All the workshops have the same method of working, they are creating a character, pulling on their lived experience to paint pictures and write dialogue. We have oral writers in the group, full of talent, painting red rockets, fire and we meet Mo the Cat (the cat now called Brendan). We talk about being neurodivergent, how our brains are wired differently, writing novels and using up dopamine. Through the creative process we/they talk about academics, words and voices being pushed to the wings, how we/Open Clasp, need to be the scaffolding and they, the sex worker activists centre stage. The Texas sky, planets and stars align. We talk about the bridge in Dublin (a story I heard way before I started the workshops) of sex worker activists, pride, cops and washed out rainbow flags.
It’s now October 2021 and I/we run a workshop with two women in Manchester, they are sat in bed and we chat, about Autumn leaves and how they are not victims, they are victimised.
The workshops come to an end, and it’s time to reflect. But as I write, I realised I need to go back to the beginning, again before the workshops started, to the interviews. I interviewed young women from West End Women & Girls Centre, maybe before pandemic. They tell a story of a broken washing machine, pounding pavements and posting CV’s. They get a job in a strip club. They paint pictures of stairs, booths and money being thrown – it’s all about the money, they say. I hear about their youth worker, she creates opportunities that lead to New York and the United Nations, jobs and purpose.
Research & Development in December 2021 – Fast forward and I have more material than I need. Laura Lindow is the director and Carly McConnell the Creative Producer. Its December 2021 and we meet here at the women’s centre, Carly and I fill the room with flipchart, tables with post it notes and print off the documentation of the workshops. Laura is joining the project, and we are presenting the many voices and stories told. The room is full. I feel the need to write for the many rather than the collective, the activists diverse, individual and unique. Each need space and a stage.
We record my presentation and give to an artist/illustrator, one of those that draw when you evaluate (normally live). We are now trying to find a creative way to present back to the groups.
Still in December 2021 we wake once again at 4.30am and make ready for a gathering of all the co-creators at 6am. The zoom/rooms open, some know each other and for others it’s the first time they meet. We present the creative response which shows what each of the groups created and/or talked about. We read the creative writing that talks about a Mycelial and that they Mycelial is them/us, they get and like it.
We close the workshop and I go home for Christmas.
In February 2022 I start to write. I write and write until I have 15,000 words and 10+ characters. There are many monologues that interconnect. During the workshops the world has slowed to a stop, got stuck in Suez Canal and Shanghai, and then as I was writing the first draft Russia invaded Ukraine. During the pandemic I wanted to know about the income and expenditure of economies, ours here in the UK. I counted people, looked at the history of land and borders, money and wars. The back drop to the ordinary lives of the co-creators and us – how goods move around the world, shipping containers and money. I looked to the moon and stars, at the constellations and stories told and how change happens, hope and bridges, history and which side you stand on.
I send the scripts back and forth to the co-creators, it’s a lot to read and/or imagine. They endorse and in September 2023, led by Laura Lindow we go into production with a nine strong cast, a creative team made up of film director Katja Roberts, designers in graphic and motion picture, set, costume, lighting and composer. We are in Association with Northern Stage, in Stage Two and it’s the biggest production we have ever made. We are making Mycelial to be filmed in front of a live audience, for a theatrical piece of film to be made and toured.
There is much talk of ‘scaling up’ within the arts industry at the moment, and for us, way back in 2021, Mycelial was the production we felt had the legs to do so. As our first internationally co-created production, we wanted to be artistically ambitious and take risks. Our creative team included Amanda Mascarenhas (Set and Costume), Roma Yagnik (Composer and Sound), Sherry Coenen (Lighting) and Simona Knuchel (Motion Graphics) and they excelled. Everyone absorbed the script, listened to our co-creators, understanding ‘nothing about us without us’ and they carried the Open Clasp ethos throughout their creative process. Alongside Laura, I loved working with this team!
The set dominated Stage 2 in Northern Stage, creating a platform for international voices with the incredible colours and sound all making an impact. It was fantastic to see the cafe/bar in Northern Stage filled with our community, LGBTQI+ community and sex workers, all there to see their lives reflected on stage or to be an ally. Mycelial is stunning on film. We’re editing with a focus on the story, our co-creators and the importance of sex worker rights. We kick off at Foyle Pride in Derry this August before touring in the autumn and we are ready with our panellists discuss sex worker rights and the impact of laws in the UK and beyond.
Carly McConnell, Senior Creative Producer
As we make and create some of our co-creators are booking flights, packing bags and flying to us, all the way from Aotearoa/New Zealand, Ireland and from across the UK.
The show opens and is live for just one week – our audiences fill the foyer and space at Northern Stage.
We have two post show panels organised, they are centre stage and we are the scaffolding. Dame Catherine Healey and Annah Pickering from the NZSWC, along with two co-creators from Ireland and the North of Ireland, representatives from the local communities we work with via the West End Women & Girls Centre, Professor Maggie O’Neill (our independent advisor), North East Sex Work Forum, GAP representatives and Dr Raven Bowen CEO of Ugly Mugs climb up onto the stage and into chairs, sat next to baths, telephone boxes, kitchen tables, blenders, red boots and black cats. We ask the auditorium to shut the doors, no photographs or recordings. This is us in a room talking in response to Mycelial. That panel, the words spoken, of activism, grassroots and revolution was a tonic for me and the whole team. Dame Catherine Healy said on stage ‘you have given the movement a gift with Mycelial’ something like that, and I didn’t realise it was, could only have hoped that Open Clasp could play a role, standing alongside, on the bridge and not in the parade. We did it.
Now as I write this blog, Carly has been working with Laura and Katja to edit the film. We have sent the co-creators the trailer and a 20 mins glimpse of the film, they said the following:
“I’m stuck for words, this is incredible, I’m thinking feeling absolutely so so thankful to each & everyone of you, for given me the opportunity to share my voice, which still I wonder how that happened 
”
“It gave me goosebumps. Gorgeous, powerful.” Dame Catherine Healy, NZPC: Te Waka Kaimahi Kairau O Aotearoa, Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers’ Collective
Catrina
