Catrina McHugh MBE currently holds the Arts seat on the RR3. She is an award-winning playwright, Joint Chief Executive and Artistic Director of Open Clasp Theatre Company, which she co-founded in 1998. Open Clasp’s work ignites activism and places theatre at the heart of transforming the lives of women and girls. The company collaborates with women excluded by theatre and society - including women affected by the criminal justice system, those seeking asylum and with refugee status, young women, minoritized women, trans and non-binary people - to create bold and urgent theatre for personal, social and political change.
Since Open Clasp’s inception, McHugh has written 23 plays, six short films and ten participatory-led performances, working with thousands of women from peripheries of society to foreground their voices through her work. McHugh’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.