Suffolk playwright Danusia Iwaszko talks about teaching marginalised groups to express themselves and valuing her dyslexia
Persuading a convicted murderer to sit down and write a play might not sound the most promising task but Suffolk-based playwright Danusia Iwaszko would take it in her stride.
For 15 years Danusia, who lives in Bury St Edmunds, has run workshops in prisons, including high security units housing those guilty of the worst crimes.
She helps not only prisoners, but also others facing challenges in their lives, to express themselves through drama.
Among those she has worked with are Bury Women’s Refuge, people who have special needs, or who are homeless, or recovering from alcohol or drug abuse.
“They are all groups that need a voice. If they’re not able to write a play, it could be song lyrics, or a poem,” she says.
Sometimes, what she sees inspires a play of her own to give audiences an insight into the lives of people who are sidelined or marginalised.
“They’re not very commercial plays – about old people who are sidelined, a women’s refuge, a writing group for prisoners.
“But while they might not sound the most appealing subjects there’s always humour in my plays. My work has to be funny and touching.”
Now it has led her and a six-strong board of trustees to launch a project that is currently going through the process to register as a charity.
The venture, which will run workshops and put on plays, will be known as Hal – a title with meaning for her because it was part of the name of the church where she set up her first community theatre group.
“Its aims are, one, getting these plays and the message of the plays out there, and making people aware of what’s going on in communities they might not know about.
“And two – running my writing workshops where I go out to theatres and say will you work with us,” she explains.
Last month Penned Up, based on her experiences in prisons, got its first public reading at Theatre Royal, Bury. “The aim of that play is to advocate the humanity of the prisoners I meet,” she says.
“The reading was absolutely amazing. There is no guarantee it will go down well. But the theatre was packed on a Monday night.
“The eight actors were incredible. They only had a day and a half rehearsals.”
Among the audience were ex-prisoners who had been to her workshops. “One came up to me after the show and said ‘that course changed my life – I learned to communicate in words, not in violence.’”
She hopes Penned Up will eventually be a full-scale production. “With a reading I can see if it works, and I will rewrite it from feedback from the audience.
“And then we will need funding. We invited people who might be interested, potential funders, and people from the criminal justice system to see if it rang true.
“Some gave money for Hal after the reading. In the event of us not producing the play it will be returned.”
She does her prison teaching for Synergy Theatre Project, a company involved in ground-breaking work across theatre and the criminal justice system that she describes as incredible.
At the start she had a lot of questions. “I thought playwrighting in prisons is weird ... no-one will get it.
“A lot have poor literacy. Will they master it? What is the point? There was uncertainty at first about a woman teaching in men’s prisons but I think it actually worked out better.
“The first one I worked in was Hollesley Bay which is an open prison. But after two weeks I saw that they were just thirsty for it and had great stuff to tell. I knew after just two weeks that there was something in it.
“I’d say 90 per cent of people in prison are full of remorse. Something that struck me is that they want to be someone. And they have had such poor opportunities and education and that’s why they turn to crime.
“These people have energy, and brains and ambition but they don’t know what to do with it and channel it in the wrong place.
“They come to the group very reluctant and lacking in confidence. Then they get into it and they have a life and the growth in confidence and self-esteem is massive, and I believe it can lead to a lack of re-offending.”
In one case it led to a high-profile career as a playwright. “One of my prisoners had a play produced in the West End that went on to be made into a Hollywood film.
“He admitted he only joined the group to get out of his cell. He had no intention of developing it, but he was very talented and within two or three weeks he thought ‘I love it, I can do this’.
“That’s the fairy tale aspect of it but there are also all the others who are helped.”
Another ex-student was one of the gang behind the Hatton Gardens heist, the multi-million pound raid dubbed Britain’s biggest ever burglary.
“In their play some visit their own lives and their own crimes. We do lots of exercises and we read and act it out.
“They are so funny. And they tell it like it is. There is lots of banter, very lively. Sometimes the officers had to come in and ask us to keep it down.”
Theatre has always been Danusia’s passion. But growing up with dyslexia meant she struggled to read or spell.
And yet the condition that went undiagnosed throughout her childhood also gave her an invaluable gift – a vivid imagination.
As she pursued her career and became a professional playwright its true worth shone through.
“My dyslexia was a real handicap as a child, but as I got older I got to value it,” she says. “The dyslexic brain is wired differently, and makes us very imaginative.
“I wouldn’t have myself rewired now because it makes me think in a different way. Playwrights are not writers of plays we are makers of plays – it’s ‘wright’ as in wheelwright. We create little worlds.”
In fact, when she was teaching at a Suffolk school for dyslexic children, it was one of the pupils who nailed the perfect description for her craft.
“A little boy said to me ‘the script is a recipe for the play’. Isn’t that wonderful.”
Danusia grew up in Wembley. Her Polish father came to England as a refugee during the war and finished up in a resettlement camp at Thetford. He met her mother, who was Irish, after he moved to London.
“I loved school despite my dyslexia,” she says. “I was interested in sport and drama. We later found out my Polish grandmother had loved the theatre, so it must have been in the DNA.
“I struggled to read my A-level books. But my headmistress got me to direct A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
“I went to Manchester University to study drama, because I realised there was other parts of it, as well as acting. It was very academic which was disappointing to me – I wanted to do more practical work.”
Her first professional jobs were acting in TV and theatre including the Granada children’s programme Tickle on the Tum.
“I loved it. Everything else was on the back burner because I was having a blast.”
Then her best friend got her involved in writing and performing comedy for the London-based Children’s Channel.
There, they dreamed up stunts like Risk a Crisp, with youngsters competing to get a crisp to them in the post unbroken.
They also wrote for Russ Abbot, and other TV programmes.“Then I said if I’m going to write my love is theatre. You have creative control. But I took a massive drop in income.
“I call those the poverty years. I had been spoilt. Telly is well paid. But I was doing wonderful projects. A short piece I wrote was entered for a play festival and won. I really needed that.
“I’m quite insecure really. It gave me a feeling of self-worth. I was rich in life experience.”
Danusia met her husband Mike Sullivan while she was still working in TV when he came to a community theatre group she was running in London.
The Catholic church where the priest allowed her free use of its hall was called Our Lady of Hal, named after a town in Belgium ... which in turn inspired the name of her new charity project.
She and Mike who have been together 30 years moved to Suffolk from a one-bed flat in Camden.
“We wanted more space and a different life experience. We had friends in the county and used to visit them. At first we lived in Polstead then moved to Bury St Edmunds.”
Their four-storey cottage is ideal because Mike can play his saxophone in the basement while Danusia writes in the attic.
Interest in her plays began to grow. “A play called One Glass Wall was put on in London. The National Theatre phoned, and said they had just seen my play.
“They invited me to be an attached writer for a year. It was the most exciting year of my life. They gave me an office, money, guidance, a mentor.”
Commissions from the Arts Council, and local ones including Theatre Royal in Bury, have helped Danusia make her name and earn her living as a playwright.
Even topics that at first sounded uninspiring – like being asked to write a play to tour schools on the subject of road safety – turned out to be an interesting challenge.
The first major piece she wrote for Theatre Royal, Bury, was A Labour of Love, a musical about the campaign to return the historic theatre, which had been used as a beer barrel store, to its original use.
“My career is just now getting to the point where I can say what I want to write about,” she says.
“My ideas now come from what I care about. I’m going to use my skills to do something about it.”
Anyone who would like to support Hal can contact Danusia at iwaszkodanusia@gmail.com
