The Making of a RIOT

Jennifer Jennings is a co-founder and co-director of THISISPOPBABY. She also moonlights as artistic director of Neon Lights music and arts festival in Singapore. 

Recently, Jenny was arts program director for Harvest Music & Arts Festival in Australia, where she devised, curated and produced the Harvest Arts program in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane. In its debut year, the festival scooped up Best Major Festival in the FBI Sydney Music, Arts and Culture Awards and was named Best Touring Festival by AU Review. Jennifer also recently worked as head of programming for Abbotsford Convent, Australia’s most unique arts, culture and learning site. 

Previously she has been program director for Dublin Fringe Festival, festival manager for Dublin GAZE Film Festival and marketing director for the DLR Festival of World Cultures.

Phillip is one half of THISISPOPBABY, and was co-creator and co-curator of the THISISPOPBABY performance venue at Electric Picnic, Queer Notions cross arts festival and WERK Performance/Art/Club.

Phillip's directing credits include Not A Funny Word (Abbey Theatre); Town Is Dead (Abbey Theatre); Dublin Oldschool(Project/NT London); RIOT; The Year of Magical Wanking, a live arena show for Rubberbandits at Electric Picnic Music and Arts Festival; and High Heels In Low Places, All Dolled Up, A Woman In Progress and In These Shoes?, all written and performed by drag superstar Panti. His plays include Town Is Dead (Best New Play nominee, Irish Times Theatre Awards); Danny and Chantelle (still here); All Over Town; Investment Potential; Pineapple; Elevator; and the musical Alice In Funderland, which premiered at the Abbey Theatre (Best Production nominee, Irish Times Theatre Awards).

Panti is Ireland's foremost "gender discombobulist" and "accidental activist.” Panti has written and performed four critically acclaimed theatre shows: In These Shoes, All Dolled Up, and A Woman in Progress. In 2013, All Dolled Up: Restitched, a reimagining of her first three hit shows, had a sold-out run at the Abbey Theatre and toured Australia. She has just finished touring the world with her stand up show High Heels In Low Places, which played to stellar reviews and packed houses across Ireland, the UK, Europe, Australia, and the US. In October 2014 she published her memoir, Woman In The Making, which was a bestseller in Ireland. Panti became an iconic figure for equality in Ireland, and in 2015 played a major role in the successful referendum campaign for marriage equality in Ireland. 

In October 2015, a critically acclaimed documentary about Panti, The Queen Of Ireland, broke Irish box office records.

THISISPOPBABY rips up the space between popular culture, counter culture and high art, providing vehicles for our associate artists’ dreams and exhilarating access points to the arts. 

"A force of nature run by Jennifer Jennings and Phillip McMahon, combining playwriting, performance, production, festivals and a tent at Electric Picnic to great effect" —The Irish Times

In the past 10 years its shows have played to over 100,000 people (and counting) around Ireland, the UK, Australia and beyond, winning five major theatre awards, with nominations for 14 more.

"Not so much cutting edge, as creators of a whole new edge of its own" —The Sunday Tribune 

Highlights to date include: breaking box office records and winning Best Production at Dublin Fringe 2016 with RIOT; a sold-out world tour of Panti’s High Heels in Low Places in 2015; bringing 56% new attenders to the Abbey for Alice in Funderland — A New Musical in 2012; winning Best New Play for Trade in the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards 2011; creating and running a hugely popular performance arena at The Electric Picnic Music Festival from 2008–2010; and collaborating with hundreds of artists and creatives from different genres and backgrounds over the past ten years.

"THISISPOPBABY has redefined modern Irish Theatre" —The Irish Times