Output details

Charged Six plays about women, crime and justice

Commissioned by Clean Break Theatre Company. During the first phase of practice-led research the author ran workshops for trafficked women and children at ECPAT UK, The Poppy Project, HMP Moreton Hall, HMP Bronzefield, and HMP Holloway prisons. Research questions included:

1. What makes a safe environment when working with vulnerable groups and women with experience of violence?

2. How might engaging in theatre, story-telling, and creative writing enhance participants’ well-being and ability to communicate their experiences?

The second phase of research involved the writing of the play. Research questions included:

1. How can individual and particular narratives be placed within a broader global narrative of immigration, national security, and surveillance without losing the immediacy of a child’s perspective?

2. What kind of theatrical aesthetic can express the sense of disorientation, isolation, and trauma that often characterizes trafficked people’s experiences, and how can site-specific and immersive theatre techniques explore this?

The third phase of research explored how performances in front of different publics can help promote awareness of the needs and experiences of trafficked children. As well as production at professional theatres and festivals, ‘Dream Pill’ has been presented at the Metropolitan Police’s Human Trafficking Conference in autumn 2010, the annual London Safeguarding Children Board conference in February 2011, and on a March 2012 tour as part of the White Ribbon Campaign’s initiative to combat violence against women. The play is published in ‘Charged. Six Plays by E. V. Crowe, Sam Holcroft, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Chloë Moss, Winsome Pinnock, and Rebecca Prichard’ (Nick Hern Books, 2011) and was performed at: The Almeida Festival 2013; Edinburgh Festival 2011; Latitude and Green Belt Festivals 2012, The Soho Theatre 2010.