Manchester International festival’s new CEO & Artistic Director is to be John McGrath, currently Artistic Director and Chief Executive of National Theatre Wales.
McGrath will start in September 2015 part-time, taking over from MIF’s founding CEO & Artistic Director, Alex Poots, who is moving to New York as founding CEO & AD of a new arts space, The Culture Shed.
Over the past seven years McGrath has set up and led National Theatre Wales.
The company has built an international reputation for its large scale site-specific and digital work and collaborations with companies such as Tokyo’s New National Theatre and Berlin’s Rimini Protokoll.
Earlier in his career, McGrath led Manchester’s Contact Theatre, re-inventing it as an industry leader in work with diverse young artists.
“We are very pleased to welcome John McGrath back to Manchester to take up the reins at MIF after his remarkable success as founding Artistic Director and CEO of National Theatre Wales. We are so grateful to Alex Poots for his creative vision, his energy, commitment and sheer hard graft over the last ten years. I know that John will build on the wonderful work Alex and his team have done, and take MIF in to its next successful decade,” commented Tom Bloxham MBE, Chair, MIF
