Hilary Strong, the director of the Edinburgh Fringe, has resigned. She is careful to point out that her resignation has nothing to do with the current disagreements over the dates of the Fringe. She had dropped hints when she was appointed in 1994 that she would not hold the post for more than five years. In the current climate of the rise in Scottish nationalism brought about by political devoloution, she says that she believes the director of Scotland's biggest festival should be a Scot.
The disagreements over her decision, taken as a result of a vote by the members of the Fringe Society, to move the Fringe's date forward a week, thus putting it out of the step with the other festivals, have still not been rsolved. However, even if the new director would be willing to reverse the decision, nothing can be done about it this year.
Strong resigned at the end of December because her contract forbids the director's resignation between January and June. She will remain in post until the appointment of a new director is confirmed, which will probably be in April or May.
Mike Morris, who was brought in by the Royal Opera House to oversee the massive redundancies during the period of reorganisation while the House is closed, has resigned. In making the announcement, press officer Amanda Jones said that his job was now finished, but that he would be staying on as a part-time consultant.
New (temporary?) ACE drama panel
The new drama advisory panel was announced this week by the Arts Council. It includes Michael Attenborough (RSC principal associate director) and Mandy Stewart (executive director of Northern Stage), both of whom were members of the panle which resigned last year. The chairman of the new panel will be Graham Morris(chief executive of Sheffield Theatres), Adrian Vinken (chief executive of the Theatre Royal, Plymouth), David Edgar (playwright), Gwenda Hughes, Nancy Meckler, Indhu Rubasingham (directors), David Benedict (critic) and Kully Thiarai (formerly of ACE's drama projects committee).
The new panel members have only been appointed until the end of March when the results of a review of advisory panels within ACE will report.
North West and South East funding for 1999
A week after most of the Regional Arts Boards announced their funding plans for the coming year, North West Arts and South East Arts have revealed their grants:
Grotowski dies
Jerzy Grotowski, director and influential author of Towards a Poor Theatre had died at his home in Italy of leukaemia, aged 65. Grotowski, who was one of Peter Brook's major influences, was an advocate of stripping away the surface trappings, thus creating a ritualistic, "bare-bones" theatre.