John McGrath | |
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Born | John Edward McGrath 5 September 1962 |
Nationality | British |
Alma mater | New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science |
Occupation(s) | Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the Manchester International Festival |
Notable work | The Passion (passion play), directed by and starring Michael Sheen |
Awards | 2005 Cultural Leadership Award, NESTA 2015 Honorary Doctorate, Open University |
Notes | |
John Edward McGrath (born 5 September 1962) is a British artistic director and chief executive of Manchester International Festival. [1] [2]
John Edward McGrath was born 5 September 1962 in Mold, North Wales [3] [4] and grew up in Liverpool. [5] [6]
McGrath gained his Ph.D. from the New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science in 1999. [7]
As a development officer McGrath founded Arts Integrated Merseyside (AIM), a disability arts organisation based in Liverpool, which later became DaDaFest. [8] [9] He also worked as a theatre director in New York, including working as an associate director for Mabou Mines. [10]
He then became the artistic director of the Contact Theatre in Manchester (1999-2008) and the founding artistic director at National Theatre Wales (NTW) (2009 - end of 2015). [11] [12] During his time at the NTW the actor Michael Sheen starred in and was creative director of The Passion, a 72-hour secular passion play staged in Sheen's hometown of Port Talbot, Wales with over 1,000 local residents taking part. [13]
In 2013 McGrath was interviewed alongside a number of other theatre practitioners in Wales for the It Gets Better Project. The project was set up in response to the suicides of teenagers who were bullied because they were gay or because their peers suspected that they were gay. In the video he states, "I knew that I didn't quite fit in with the right way to be a boy...If you can find ways to be strong and to ask for help when you need help, then people are out there to help you. ... Don't worry also if you don't fit into the new 'profit pattern' of what it is to be gay, there are places and spaces to be a bit different, even from that." [14]
Michael Christopher Sheen is a Welsh actor. After training at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he worked mainly in theatre throughout the 1990s with stage roles in Romeo and Juliet (1992), Don't Fool with Love (1993), Peer Gynt (1994), The Seagull (1995), The Homecoming (1997), and Henry V (1997). He received Olivier Awards nominations for his performances in Amadeus (1998) at the Old Vic, Look Back in Anger (1999) at the National Theatre and Caligula (2003) at the Donmar Warehouse.
The Old Vic is a 1,000-seat, not-for-profit producing theatre in Waterloo, London, England. It was established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, and renamed in 1833 the Royal Victoria Theatre. In 1871 it was rebuilt and reopened as the Royal Victoria Palace. It was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 and formally named the Royal Victoria Hall, although by that time it was already known as the "Old Vic". In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian Baylis, assumed management and began a series of Shakespeare productions in 1914. The building was damaged in 1940 during air raids and it became a Grade II* listed building in 1951 after it reopened.
Contact is an arts organisation based in Manchester, England. Established in 1972, as a center for young artists to create and learn, the theatre remains in its original building and is a part of the Arts Council England, the University of Manchester, the Manchester City Council, and the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities..
The Royal Exchange is a grade II listed building in Manchester, England. It is located in the city centre on the land bounded by St Ann's Square, Exchange Street, Market Street, Cross Street and Old Bank Street. The complex includes the Royal Exchange Theatre and the Royal Exchange Shopping Centre.
Daniel MacIvor is a Canadian actor, playwright, theatre director, and film director. He is probably best known for his acting roles in independent films and the sitcom Twitch City.
The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded as The Traverse Theatre Club in 1962 by John Calder, John Malcolm, Jim Haynes, Richard Demarco, Terry Lane, Andrew Muir, John Martin and Sheila Colvin.
The Manchester International Festival is a biennial international arts festival, with a specific focus on original new work, held in the English city of Manchester and run by Factory International. The festival is a biennial event, first taking place in June–July 2007, and subsequently recurring in the summers of 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021. MIF23 will take place in summer 2023. The organisation is based in Blackfriars House, adjacent to Blackfriars Bridge but is due to move to a new £110 million new home, Factory International, in 2023.
John McGrath may refer to:
Josie Rourke is an English theatre and film director. She is a Vice-President of the London Library and was the artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse theatre from 2012 to 2019. In 2018, she made her feature film debut with the Academy Award and BAFTA-nominated historical drama Mary Queen of Scots, starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie.
The Red Room Theatre Company is a theatre company based in London, United Kingdom. In the 1990s, it was an important venue for new play writing.
The Ian Charleson Awards are theatrical awards that reward the best classical stage performances in Britain by actors under age 30. The awards are named in memory of the British actor Ian Charleson, and are run by the Sunday Times newspaper and the National Theatre. The awards were established in 1990 after Charleson's death, and have been awarded annually since then. Sunday Times theatre critic John Peter (1938–2020) initiated the creation of the awards, particularly in memory of Charleson's extraordinary Hamlet, which he had performed shortly before his death. Recipients receive a cash prize, as do runners-up and third-place winners.
Alan Harris is a Welsh playwright and television writer.
National Theatre Wales (NTW) is a charity and theatre company based in Wales.
Michael Elliott, OBE was an English theatre and television director. He was a founding director of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.
DaDaFest is a disability arts organisation based in Liverpool, UK. It delivers an international, biennial festival and organises other events to promote disability and deaf arts from a variety of cultural perspectives. Alongside the festival and events, DaDaFest organises opportunities for disabled and deaf people to gain access to the arts. This includes training and a youth focused programme.
Alexander Moinet Poots, is the founding chief executive and artistic director of The Shed in New York City. He was formerly the founding chief executive and artistic director of the Manchester International Festival (2005-2015) and the artistic director of Park Avenue Armory (2012–2015).
Julie McNamara is a theatre director, playwright, producer, actor and poet. She is artistic director of touring theatre company Vital Xposure. Patron of disability arts organisation DaDaFest and a political activist for human rights and gender politics.
Kaite O'Reilly FRSL is UK-based playwright, author and dramaturge of Irish descent. She has won multiple awards for her work, including the Ted Hughes Award (2011) for her version of Aeschylus's tragedy The Persians. O'Reilly's plays have been performed at venues across the UK and at the Edinburgh Festival. Her work has also been shown internationally including in Europe Australia, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. O'Reilly openly identifies as a disabled artist and has spoken of the importance of "identifying socially and politically as disabled" to her work. In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Mandy Colleran is a comic, writer, actress and disability arts activist.
Kully Thiarai FRSA is a British artistic and creative director whose career began in theatre. With her appointment at National Theatre Wales in 2016, she became the first Asian person, and only second woman, to lead a national theatre company in Britain. She has held multiple artistic directorships, including, from 2020 to 2024, the role of creative director for LEEDS 2023 – the city's independent year of culture.
pub. info. (John Edward McGrath; b. Sept. 5, 1962; Contact Theatre, Manchester, UK)