A Changemaker Mam: Building Theatre for Survivors

Doing a Fellowship as a mam of three means holding competing truths: I felt hugely grateful and deeply guilty. I planned international travel around school calendars, childcare, and parents’ evenings, while managing freelance work and running Workie Ticket Theatre.

I took this challenge on because I see the impact of misogyny and violence against women and girls and I want to do something about it – my way, starting in my own community. At a time when this harm feels increasingly visible, I wanted to explore how theatre can move beyond entertainment and become a tool for support, solidarity, and lasting change.

My research focused on feminist, survivor-led theatre practices from around the world and how they could be ethically adapted for the UK. I was particularly interested in how care, consent, and safety are built into the structure of this work – how survivors are centred not just in the stories being told, but in the process itself. As a survivor myself, this mattered.

This is also why I founded Workie Ticket. I’ve always seen theatre as a tool for change, not just storytelling. The most important work happens long before anyone sits in an audience: it’s in community centres, relationships built, conversations over cake, in the moment someone realises they’re not alone.

Across Europe, North America and Africa – in-person and online – I encountered an extraordinary network of practitioners using theatre to challenge gender-based violence and transform their communities.

I met with Theatre for a Change (TfaC), who centre women and girls in Malawi, equipping them with the tools to tell their stories and break the silence around abuse. I trained with Theatre of the Oppressed in New York to deepen my Forum Theatre practice, and connected in Berlin with Rachel Karafistan of Cosmino Theatre, who amplifies women’s voices in her work. In Bucharest, I spent time with Roma feminist theatre-maker Mihaela Drăgan, and in the USA with WAM Theatre, where conversations extend beyond the stage into women’s refuges. In Canada, I met male theatre-makers speaking out against male violence, and Rachel Cairns, who fused lived-experience with theatre through a podcast on abortion. These encounters represent just a fraction of the powerful work I witnessed.

What this journey gave me most was clarity. It helped me stop apologising for how I already work and trust that process matters as much as product. Community-led practice is not a compromise in theatre-making – it is a strength.

The structure of the Fellowship itself mattered too. I was trusted both as a changemaker and as a mam. I was able to split my travel, returning home between trips to care for my children and sustain my work. That flexibility wasn’t a luxury; it made the Fellowship possible, recognising that being a mam and being a changemaker don’t cancel each other out.

Now I’m developing Theatre of the Survivor: a practice framework grounded in survivor leadership, trauma-informed facilitation, and cross-sector collaboration, which I’ll pilot in the Northeast of England. I’m seeking further funding to keep it sustained and accessible to the communities who need it most.

I’ll be shouting proudly about my Fellowship, because success isn’t applause or ticket sales – it’s the safety created, the care crafted, and the voices amplified. That’s the real work of a changemaker mam.

JoJo Kirtley is the Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Workie Ticket Theatre and a mother of three. She can be found on Instagram @geetgeordiefeminist.