Transforming lives

Catrina McHugh MBE, joint chief executive and artistic director of Newcastle-based Open Clasp Theatre Company, which she co-founded in 1998 before going on to write 23 plays, six short films and ten participatory-led performances – all aimed at bringing about social justice – said she was “extremely honoured” to receive the award.

She told those gathered for the ceremony, at Newcastle University’s King’s Hall, how her journey had taken her from the youngest of five – and the only girl growing up in a family “that celebrated everything army and patriarchal” – to a political activist who enables the voices of disenfranchised women in society to be heard around the world.

She was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters in recognition of her creative leadership of the Open Clasp team, whose mission is to place theatre at the heart of transforming the lives of disadvantaged women and girls.

The aim of Open Clasp, a company which Catrina says “can’t walk past injustice,” is to create bold and urgent theatre alongside women affected by the criminal justice system, those seeking asylum and with refugee status, young women, minoritised women and trans and non-binary people, to bring about personal, social and political change.

In her speech, Catrina, who describes herself as a political activist and an “ally to all of those who experience discrimination,” said her journey had seen her learn “the power built when space is made for women to gather”.

“This award honours the thousands of women who have placed their trust in Open Clasp theatre company over the past 26 years,” Catrina said.

“These women have gathered in youth and community centres and prisons throughout the UK, Ireland, New York and more recently, the New Zealand sex workers’ collective.”

“I’m extremely honoured to have been awarded this degree.”

Honoured

Catrina also gifted the archive of Open Clasp Theatre Company’s work to Newcastle University, and spoke with pride about how the Open Clasp team continues to grow within the city.

Newcastle University Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Chris Day said: “As a University which values and understands the power of the creative arts, we are truly honoured to confer this award on Catrina.

“Her work with women and girls has transformed lives.”

After leaving school at 16 and choosing drama over hairdressing, Catrina was making headlines as a drama teacher in Salford by the age of 19, with the Liverpool Echo celebrating her as a success story.

At 32, she went to University and achieved a first-class honours degree in Drama from Northumbria University before receiving a Distinction in her Masters degree in creative writing from Newcastle University, which she did alongside running Open Clasp.

Through the theatre company, Catrina has dedicated her professional life to making ground-breaking theatre that matters, and changes lives for the better, championing a feminist model of theatre-making and seeking to ‘change the world one play at a time’.

The company has been widely influential in the North East, where it has opened up a wide range of career development opportunities for theatre makers.

In the region and beyond, it has created a substantial impact on the women whose lives have been transformed by engagement with the company.

Trajectory

Catrina has also spent 25 years highlighting the challenges faced by the region’s LGBT+ community, for whom she has created community concerts, pantomimes, and festivals.

In 2017, Catrina was awarded an MBE for outstanding services to disadvantaged women through theatre.

A year later, she was given the Charity Leader of the Year Award at the North East Charity Awards, and in the same year, at the Journal Culture Awards, she was named ‘Writer of the Year’ for Rattle Snake – a play featuring the real life experiences of women who have faced and survived coercive controlling domestic abuse.

Other awards have included the Carol Tambor ‘Best of Edinburgh’ Award in 2015, for Key Change, a play exploring four women’s time in prison.

Catrina said this award “changed the trajectory of the theatre company” after it “took a risk” taking the play to Edinburgh.

“It paid off and we got the voices of incarcerated women in the North East to Edinburgh and then to New York off Broadway and into prisons over there,” Catrina said of the play, which was also named a New York Times Critics Pick and picked up The Journal Culture Awards 2016’s Arts Council Award.

“We came home and we toured nationally, starting at the Houses of Parliament.

“Over the past 10 years, we’ve worked in partnership with criminologists using theatre and a creative response to train thousands of police officers of all ranks, as well as multiple agencies involved with domestic violence and abuse.

“We’ve learned over the years the value the arts can play to make change happen.”

She added that reports and reviews can be written, “but when you place a piece of theatre in front of an audience, you’re asking people, including those with power, to step into the shoes of others and this creates empathy – and empathy creates change”.

In 2020, Sugar, was commissioned by BBC Arts for BBC iPlayer and reached 7000 homes, to raise public consciousness of women in the criminal justice system during the Covid pandemic.

More importantly however, Catrina’s plays are directly influencing policy and have contributed to debates on the Prison Safety and Reform White Paper 2016, Independent Review of the Family Court 2019 and the Independent Care Review 2021.

Open Clasp’s work continues to be endorsed across academia and by the government’s Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Victims Commissioner and Police and Crime Commissioners.

Other Newcastle University graduates collecting their awards during the same ceremony as Catrina included this year’s BA Contemporary and Popular Music cohort, Bachelor of Music with Honours in Music graduates, BA Folk and Traditional Music Scholars and those who completed Bachelor of Arts degrees, Masters and PhD’s in Fine Art.

Press release adapted with thanks to Open Clasp