A former prisoner said that she had only survived her time in prison thanks to a theater company.
Cheryl Byron was serving a two -year prison sentence for drug offenses at HMP Low Newton, near Durham, when she was presented to Open Clasp in 2013.
Before she started working with the group, she was so afraid that she had locked herself in her cell and did not speak to anyone, she said.
“This company entered prison and turned, not just my life, but hundreds of other people,” she said. “They really saved me.”
The Newcastle Theater Company, whose productions are co-created “with women excluded by the theater and the company”, recently received four years of funding by comic rescue as part of its courts of the sexes.
Ms. Byron’s daughter Abigail said that Open Fermase staff were in prison while her mother was in prison. was “really comforting”.
“To know that she had something in there that took her mind somewhere, and she was not only sitting,” she said.
When Ms. Byron came out of prison, she felt lost and was aware that her relationship with her daughter had changed.
The mother and daughter ended up telling their story on stage in a play played by the company Open Clasp.
Their game, do not forget the birds, explored how prison and their time apart had had an impact on their relationship and how the pair had restored their mother-daughter link.
“We visited it throughout the country,” said Ms. Byron. “It was absolutely fantastic.”
The latest production of Open CLASP – A show by a woman entitled Rupture, co -created with women from HMP Low Newton – was played at the Durham Theater theater earlier this month.
Catrina Mchugh Mbe, artistic director and playwright at Open Clasp, said that women in prison had something to say, but too often their voices are not heard.
“The theater is so powerful, and above all the way we do theater with co-creators,” said Mchughu.
“When we say to change the world a game at a time, we really think – and we have seen it in the past 26 years.”
