John McGrath | |
---|---|
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). His performances in Amadeus at the Old Vic and Look Back in Anger at the National Theatre were nominated for Olivier Awards in 1998 and 1999, respectively. In 2003, he was nominated for a third Olivier Award for his performance in Caligula at the Donmar Warehouse.
Contact is an arts organisation in Manchester, England that focuses on youth leadership.
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 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.
Elizabeth Margaret Ross MacLennan was a Scottish actress, writer and radical popular theatre practitioner.
Christopher Oram is a British theatre set and costume designer.
Alan Harris is a Welsh playwright and television writer.
National Theatre Wales (NTW) is a theatre company known for its large-scale site-specific productions and its grassroots work with diverse Welsh communities. It is the English-language national theatre of Wales, and refers to Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru, the Welsh-language national theatre of Wales founded in 2003, as its sister company.
Michael Elliott, OBE was an English theatre and television director. He was a founding director of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.
Matthew Xia is a British theatre director, DJ, composer, broadcaster and journalist.
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.
HOME is an arts centre, cinema and theatre complex in Manchester, England. With five cinemas, two theatres and 500 m2 (5,400 sq ft) of gallery space, it is one of the few arts organisations to commission, produce and present work across film, theatre and visual art.
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 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.
Mandy Colleran is a comic, writer, actress and disability arts activist.
pub. info. (John Edward McGrath; b. Sept. 5, 1962; Contact Theatre, Manchester, UK)