Iain James
Director of Musical Theatre: Head of Teaching and Learning.
You will find Jo in her Footlights t-shirt and trackies any Saturday at one of her four company owned units in Media City, Prestwich, Urmston or Wigan. If you arrive between 9.45-10am, be warned; she’ll probably ‘persuade’ you to join in the most energetic warm up of your life! At 50 years of age she is more passionate and livelier than ever. Jo is always hands on with classes at the schools as well as her franchisees. She thrives off the buzz of Footlights and of course inside theatre she and Sue have built over the last four years at Media City ‘The Empty Space’
For the teaching teams, the children and young people Jo uses her previous 20 years teaching experience to ensure your child gets the BEST experience at Footlights and beyond. For franchisees Jo is always on hand and delivers MOST of the training herself.
Jo’s drive is central to the company – she is quick to identify opportunities to grow the business and has a successful track record in doing so.
Jo who has a BA ( Hons) and PGCE began the company in 2005 and has trained for over 8 years as both an actor and teacher. She won ‘Entrepreneur of The Year’ at Salford Business Awards in 2016 and has produced over dozens of plays, she has directed at The Lowry Studio with award winning MonkeyWood Theatre and produced a sell out play ‘The Queen is Dead’ at The Lowry studio.
In 2019 Jo’s commitment to education and notable on creating educational theatre on WW1 was invited to Westminster Abbey to celebrate the Centenary of WW1,
In recent years she has written five brand new plays ‘The Beginning of the End’( WW1), ‘Five’ ( a hate crime play based on true stories from the past 100 years) ‘And Then you Kissed Me‘ about Domestic Abuse, ‘Invisible’ (Child Sexual Exploitation) and ‘WiFi‘ (Cyberbullying).Jo ‘fell’ into teaching and discovered she had as much passion for this as she did for books and acting. In 2005, after years of freelance teaching work and acting, she launched Footlights with just £300 on a credit card.
Jo started the company over 15 years ago as she wanted to offer affordable training to children from deprived areas as well as those from middle income families. Jo says “One of the reasons I started Footlights is because I wanted to engage with young people, take them off the streets, out of the classroom and onto the stage. I also thought I could provide a better service than our competition!” She recognises the importance of working collaboratively to achieve the best outcomes and her enthusiasm and tenacity has led to partnerships with senior educationalists, police and community services. She firmly believes that working with the right people, both inside and outside the business, is fundamental to success.
Jo’s story
She grew up in Higher Openshaw, a deprived area of inner city Manchester, she left school aged 14 with no qualifications and became the first milkwoman in Manchester in 1988 at the age of 18. Although, as a child, Jo loved literature, she was not encouraged to pursue her ambitions but instead expected to drift into an unskilled job. Jo fought against this and, in 1992, decided to fulfil her dream and train as an actor. She sacrificed everything for her training so much so that in 1995 she contracted Bells Palsy – a one sided facial paralysis which left her unable to move the muscles on the right hand side of her face or be able to articulate her words, she was auditioning for drama school at the time, watch her story on how she won her battle for a place at drama school.
For Press or Interviews please email suehibbert@footlightstheatre.co.uk
