North East women’s theatre company Open Clasp is to tour nationally with its award-winning play Key Change.
Devised with the women of the Young Offenders Institution at HMP Low Newton and scripted by Catrina McHugh, Key Change was first performed in 2014 and when the BTG reviewed it in June of that year, we wrote, “this is a powerful piece of theatre which not only moves but illuminates. It should have a longer theatrical life.”
That proved prophetic. After numerous performances in and around the region, it had a successful run at the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe where it won the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award which took it to New York where the New York Times described it as “a moving, intimate and superbly acted drama about women’s lives in a British prison.”
Now it is to tour to 15 venues nationally, including one performance in the Houses of Parliament, before it returns for a three night run at Newcastle’s Live Theatre.
The tour takes it to:
-
24 – 26 October
Battersea Arts Centre -
25 October
Houses of Parliament (invited audience) -
28 October
Gala Theatre, Durham -
31 October
Bay Theatre, Weymouth -
3 November
Old Fire Station, Oxford -
4 November
Quarry Theatre, Bedford -
9 November
Mumford Theatre, Cambridge -
10 November
Theatre Royal, Margate -
15 November
Gulbenkian, Canterbury -
16 November
Norden Farm Arts Centre, Maidenhead -
17 November
Farnham Maltings -
18 November
Old Town Hall Arts Centre, Hemel Hempstead -
19 November
ArtsDepot, London -
22 – 24 November
Contact Theatre, Manchester -
25 November
Theatre Delicatessen, Sheffield -
26 November
Arts Centre, Washington -
8 – 10 December
Live Theatre, Newcastle