Jo Mangan Biography
Jo is the Artistic Director of Ireland’s Internationally renowned site-specific specialists The Performance Corporation. Recent directing credits for the company include Swampoodle – a large scale site-specific performance in Washington DC’s Uline Arena, co-produced with Solas Nua, Slattery’s Sago Saga (nominated Best Director, Best New Play and Best Actor in the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards), which played at Rathfarnham Castle, on National Tour and at the Dublin Theatre Festival.
Other work for The Performance Corporation includes Power Point (Dublin Fringe Festival and Tampere Festival Finland), Cool Fresh Milk (Electronic Church, Berlin, and Darklight Festival Dublin), the Irish Times Theatre Award winning The Nose (Project Arts Centre Dublin), Dr Ledbetter’s Experiment (nominated Best Production Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards), White-Out (Allianz Business to Arts Awards commission), JIG (St. Patrick’s Festival Dublin commission), KISS (commission for Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival), Lizzie Lavelle and the Vanishing of Emlyclough (Carne Golf Links, Belmullet, Co. Mayo), Drive-By (co-produced with Once Off Productions for Cork Midsummer Festival, Dublin Fringe Festival and Canterbury Festival England), Dr. Ledbetter’s Experiment (Kilkenny Arts Festival co-production and Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Festival Fringe) – Irish Times Theatre Awards Best Production nominee, The Yokohama Delegation (Kilkenny Arts Festival co-production) which represented Ireland at the Prague Quadrennial Design Exhibition, Paka (Nairobi and Mombassa, Kenya), Candide (Winner Special Judges Award, Best Actor and Nominated Best Director and Best Production Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards), The 7 Deadly Sins, and the Stewart Parker Trust Award nominated The Butterfly Ranch (SS Michael and John Dublin) by Tom Swift.
Some directing work for other companies includes What the Folk (Siamsa Tire - National Folk Theatre) in the Dublin Fringe Festival, Bogboy (Tall Tales Theatre) in Project Arts Centre, New York’s First Irish Festival, at the Irish Arts Centre (awarded Best Director, Best Production and Best Actress in the Festival) and on National Tour, and Beware of the Storybook Wolves (The Ark) and Moira, Dreamframe, Awimbaway and Mary Quirke for Fishamble.
Radio plays include The Flying Dutchman of Iniskill by Tom Swift (Nominated Best Drama PPI Radio awards). Films include A Life (Galway Film Fleadh); TV includes a Flann O’Brien special for TV3 The 3rd Policeman’s Ball.
Jo curates The Performance Corporation’s SPACE Programme, an international multidisciplinary artists residency in Castletown House, Co. Kildare. Jo is a board member of the Riverbank Arts Centre, VISUAL in Carlow, and has served on the boards of Theatre Forum and Fishamble.
Jo has lectured, given workshops and presented on The Performance Corporation’s work in many of Ireland’s Universities, and is a graduate of the Samuel Beckett Centre in TCD. Prior to founding The Performance Corporation she worked in all roles in theatre as a freelancer, as well as Producer for Fishamble for four years.
Jo was awarded the 2011/12 Jerome Hynes Clore Cultural Leadership Fellowship.
