Producing Bold New Work
Early Beginnings
After spending formative years as Joan Littlewood’s assistant at Stratford East, Jenny trained as a theatre designer and won an Arts Council Designer’s Bursary to the Library Theatre in Manchester. Subsequently she designed and directed for four years for companies including: Manchester Youth Theatre, The Haymarket Theatre Company in Basingstoke, Hampshire Youth Theatre, Soho Poly, Buxton Opera Festival and for her own company ‘Fit to Bust’.
Inspired by her partner Andy Phillips, Jenny began producing in 1995 with The Father starring Edward Fox and Stephanie Beacham. Two years later, she co-produced Women on the Verge of HRT at the Vaudeville Theatre, London’s West End and on a two-year tour.
Jenny with her partner, Lighting Designer Andy Phillips in 2000. Photo: Nobby Clark
Regional Theatre
In the mid 90s, Jenny founded a consortium of regional theatres with the support of Arts Council England, committed to presenting plays and protecting drama audiences, which were diminishing outside of London. Theatres included Alhambra Bradford, Blackpool Grand, Everyman Cheltenham, Darlington Hippodrome, Edinburgh King’s, Nottingham Theatre Royal and Wolverhampton Grand. The cornerstone of this work was curriculum led, including influential work by twentieth-century American playwright Arthur Miller (The Crucible, A View from the Bridge), Harper Lee (To Kill A Mockingbird) and John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men).
Matthew Kelly and George Costigan as Lennie and George in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, 2003.
As well as the existing titles, Jenny led the consortium through a six-year period of new work as part of the Arts Council’s Strategic Touring Fund, beginning in 2012. New adaptations of titles such as E.R. Braithwaite’s To Sir with Love (adapted by Ayub Khan Din), Pat Barker’s Regeneration (adapted by Nicholas Wright) and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (adapted by Dawn King) were produced for the first time. Jenny supported a greater shift towards developing and engaging new audiences through the choice of titles and the participation of local people.
West End and On Tour
Jenny was named in The Stage 100’s Most Influential in 2011 after producing London’s hit show The Railway Children at Waterloo Station. The site-specific production ran for two years at the former Eurostar Terminal where it was seen by over 150,000 people and won an Olivier Award for Best Entertainment. She subsequently produced The Railway Children in Toronto, which won a Dora Award for Audience Choice. In the same year, Jenny co-produced the unique spectacle Slava’s Snowshow at the Royal Festival Hall. Musicals include co-producing the revival of legendary Broadway favourite A Chorus Line at the London Palladium, and a 26 date tour of the feel good favourite Hairspray. In 2019, she produced the world-premiere of Man in the White Suit at Wyndham’s Theatre.
Jenny on the set of The Railway Children in Toronto, 2011.