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Fresh hope for former CragRats employees

Published Tuesday 30 June 2009 at 14:45 by Matthew Hemley

Actors left out of work following the sudden closure of theatre company CragRats look set to benefit from a new business being formed by two ex-managers from the defunct organisation.

Claire Awty and Matt Cleve, both former senior managers with the theatre and training company which went into receivership in June affecting up to 400 employees, have united to launch Juice Learning, a company they say will continue to work with a number of former CragRats clients.

The pair are the first ex-CragRats employees to announce a new offering following the company’s closure three weeks ago, but it is understood a number of other staff who worked for the business are also considering taking a similar route.

Awty told The Stage that Juice Learning will focus on offering training programmes within the private and public sectors, and will continue to work with actors previously employed by the former Holmfirth-based business.

“A lot of the actors were worrying they would have to take an office job following CragRats’ decline, but the great thing is, with Juice Learning, we can keep them acting so they don’t have to go for those office jobs, which would be a complete waste of their talent,” she said.

The former manager added that a number of ex-CragRats clients that used the company’s learning programmes - which included the likes of Barclaycard - had expressed an interest in working with Juice Learning.

Awty said this was testament to the quality of people who used to work for CragRats, which was formed in 1989 to deliver learning and communication programmes to schools and businesses using actors.

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