John returns to city as festival boss

Published: 17 May 2015
Reporter: David Upton

Manchester International Festival’s new CEO and artistic director is to be John McGrath, currently artistic director and chief executive of National Theatre Wales but familiar to Manchester folk as the man who helped re-invent the city’s Contact venue.

McGrath will start in September part-time, taking over from MIF’s founding CEO and artistic director, Alex Poots, who is moving to New York to take over the same role 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.

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