Our year began with a sprinkle of change, a new year, new jobs, babies and new staff, along with a shuffle to the structure and team. Our review day in March was full of dreams with our co-creators taking centre stage.
In the spring of this year we toured Rupture, co-created with incarcerated mothers, live and to audiences in mainstream venues, community centres and prisons, including HMP Low Newton where we had worked with the mothers back in 2022/23.
We set up stages in prison canteens, had audiences with babes in arms, in colourful chapels and cold gyms. We performed in the Mrs Robinson Hall (at the women’s centre*) as well as mainstream theatres, with their plush red and velvet seats. We held post show discussions, with experts with lived experience of prison, campaigners, activists and researchers. Diverse and hungry to talk about the lives of incarcerated mothers and what the change could be if we imagined a future in 10 years’ time.
Rupture was then filmed and we did it all again in the Autumn of this year but this time most of our tour was to the male prison estate. This was challenging and rewarding in equal measures. We got men up on their feet to step into the shoes of the mother on stage, becoming one of her sons, like those in the audience, now in prison and a young father. An incarcerated audience asking and answering questions – building bridges and placing the stepping stones needed from released to their future selves.
The film tour reached over the Irish sea and saw the voices of our co-creators heard by audiences in Belfast. It was platformed for the 16 Days of Action to End Violence Against Women and Girls. Now it will join Drama Online along with other Open Clasp productions such as Key Change, Sugar, Lasagna and Mycelial.
Mycelial, co-created with sex worker activists during the pandemic and toured globally in 2024, went to Greece in the summer of 2025 as part of the Sappho International Women’s Festival. We linked with the Red Umbrella in Athens, and now Mycelial has been translated into Greek and will be available for sex worker activists, continuing to reach audiences across Europe to have the voices of sex workers heard and their basic human rights met.
This year we piloted two courses, Creative Writing Course and Drama facilitation (the methods we use when working with communities of women). The writing course took place in the Centre’s library, built by and for women. We lit the log burning stove, and we wrote creatively together, Gold Star Members (our co-creators) and women from the centre. The other took place in the Ruth Charlton Hall. Both courses were a complete honour to run and gave much needed opportunity for the talent of working class women to be seen and heard.
As part of the 16 Days to End Violence Against Women and Girls this year, we gathered at the centre to watch Rattle Snake, co-created in 2015 to train police in Coercive Controlling Behaviours. One of our Afternoon of Activism and in partnership with the centre. There’s a call to action for all councillors and MP’s to watch Rattle Snake, to hold those who have pledged a 50% reduction in violence against women and girls, accountable. A decade later and Rattle Snake is still changing worlds.
Throughout the year we have continued to turn our focus on our local community, and we were honoured to work in partnership with the centre with their Belonging Project. Using creative writing the groups, wrote, drew and used spoken word to paint pictures of places and moments we were feel respected, valued, seen and heard. We also included those places and moments when we don’t feel we belong, recounting racism and hate that has entered our streets and communities this year.
The Belonging Project was a great introduction to our new production, which sees the company working with every group that attends the centre, using our methodology to co-create, will see the women and girls work creatively up on their feet, writing script and working with the company to produce a national tour.
Looking back over this year I see the staff team working hard, with skill and passion. I feel the support of our Board of Trustees, those that fund and invest in Open Clasp. I’m grateful and inspired by our partners in academia, researchers and activists. We are fortunate to work with some of the most amazing creative teams, directors, actors, designers, composers and facilitators.
Looking back over the year I see our co-creators taking centre stage. At the heart of everything we do are the communities of women, us and them, together we continue to change the world.
*Westend Women & Girls Centre were we are based.
