Open Clasp: Theatre for Social Change

Launching June 2025

Six filmed performances from Open Clasp, whose challenging and compelling work speaks to issues facing women and girls today, and especially those in the prison system. These plays were co-created by women otherwise excluded by theatre and society.

Open Clasp have performed their plays in theatres, prisons, schools, conferences, and community centres. The work resonates deeply in the communities where it is created as well as ensuring that outside these communities the under-represented are seen in a new light.

This collection features:

• Rattle Snake: An epic tale based on real-life stories of women who have faced and survived coercive controlling domestic abuse.
• Mycelial: An underground community of sex workers scattered across the globe stand together in their fight for justice.
• Sugar: A probation office, a prison cell, a homeless shelter. Three women all ‘doing time’ in very different ways.
• Us Too: Alisha’s Story: Created with and for the women from #UsToo who have experience of reporting rape and sexual assault.
• Key Change: Carries the voices of imprisoned women over the razor wire in a raw, illuminating, yet funny portrayal.
• Lasagna: It’s the first national lockdown and two women, both strangers, step out and across the line that divides them.

Image credits: Keith Pattison (left and middle images); picturesbybish.com (right image)