John McGrath News

Salford's foremost festival Sounds from the Other City and legendary London producers Serious present a packed programme of live music each Wednesday to Sunday at Manchester International Festival's Festival Square running from 30 June to 16 July.

Manchester International Festival today announces the programme for the 2017 Festival, which takes place 29 June - 16 July this year.

Manchester International Festival has today announced John McGrath's inaugural programme for the 2017 event (Thursday 29 June - Sunday 16 July).

A collaborative performance from BA (Hons) Acting, BA (Hons) Costumeand Performance Design, BA (Hons) Make Up for Media and Performance.

Arcade Fire bring their breath-taking live set to Manchester International Festival this summer at the city's Castlefield Bowl, Thursday 6 July.   

A collaborative performance from BA (Hons) Acting, BA (Hons) Costumeand Performance Design, BA (Hons) Make Up for Media and Performance.

A collaborative performance from BA (Hons) Acting, BA (Hons) Costumeand Performance Design, BA (Hons) Make Up for Media and Performance.

LIFT CEO and Artistic Director Mark Ball will become the Associate Artistic Director at Manchester International Festival, focusing on the creation and delivery of the artistic programme for Factory, Manchester's new flagship venue for large-scale performance and different art forms, on the former site of Granada TV Studios. Mark will work closely with Manchester International Festival's Artistic Director/CEO John McGrath to create a unified artistic vision for both the venue and the festival. Mark will start full time at MIF in June.

New Artistic Director John McGrath reveals snapshot of his first programme, running 29 June - 16 July 2017.

Dundee Rep Theatre presents the forthcoming tour of The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil this autumn. Associate Artistic Director Joe Douglas will be reunited with the stellar creative team and many members of the ensemble cast who received wide spread critical praise for the production which smashed box office records at the venue in September 2015. This will be the first professional tour of the play in over twenty years. Scroll down for a first look at the cast onstage!

Dundee Rep Theatre are launching a nation-wide photographic Instagram competition in advance of the autumn tour of their hugely successful production of The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil. 

Today the Citizens Theatre announces its Autumn 2016 Season, featuring a major new Main Stage production of Harry Gibson's adaptation of Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh's controversial depiction of the drug culture of 1980s Edinburgh, directed by Citizens Theatre's Main Stage Director in Residence Gareth Nicholls; a large-scale community production written by Johnny McKnight based on the famous Glasgow urban myth of 'The Gorbals Vampire'; smash-hit musical Glasgow Girls' return to the Citizens Theatre following a fresh run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe; riotous comedy of manners The Rivals directed by Dominic Hill in a co-production with Bristol Old Vic and Liverpool Everyman &Playhouse; Dundee Rep's hugely successful 2015 production of John McGrath's The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil; and a new festive production for all the family of Hansel and Gretel directed by Dominic Hill.

Award-winning playwright David Greig has announced the details of his first season as Artistic Director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, Scotland's largest producing theatre. The 2016/17 season features 11 main stage productions, including the revival of an iconic political play, a new twist on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, Caryl Churchill's A Number, and a large-scale production featuring the citizens of Edinburgh.

Kully Thiarai, the founding Artistic Director of Doncaster's Cast has today been named as the new Artistic Director and Chief Executive of National Theatre Wales, the country's English-language national theatre, following John McGrath's departure to run the Manchester International Festival.

The Play Company's (PlayCo) 2015-16 Idea Lab features three curated events, November 18 & 28 and December 4, following performances of award-winning, German playwright Maria Milisavljevic's Abyss. The critically acclaimed U.S. premiere, directed by Maria Mileaf, runs through December 6 at Theaterlab, 357 West 36th Street. Writing about Abyss for The New York Times, Ben Brantley praised the 'poetic drama,' as 'genuinely artful...And it will take you places you didn't expect to go.' Speaking about the play's painfully current themes, he said it considers, 'some very topical questions of European national identities in a time of permeable and shifting borders.'

The Play Company (PlayCo), led by Founding Producer Kate Loewald and Executive Producer Lauren Weigel, kicks off its 15th Anniversary season with the U.S. premiere of Abyss, which marks the U.S. debut of the award-winning German playwright Maria Milisavljevic. Abyss, directed by Maria Mileaf, is a poetic thriller centered on the mysterious disappearance of a young woman. The play exemplifies PlayCo's unique commitment to premiering work from around the world to advance a dynamic, international experience of contemporary theater in New York. Abyss is an exploration of what it means to be an outsider. Speaking about the play Milisavljevic says, "making a new home means finding a new kind of honesty. Otherwise the old lies will follow you."

In the opulent drawing room of the Presidential Palace, a Western photojournalist awaits the return of the dictator. She is here to take his portrait. The dictator's wife, her best friend and an interpreter wait with her. Prada shoes, vodka glasses and light fingers tap out the time. He is late, very late…

Manchester International Festival today announces that its new CEO & Artistic Director is to be John McGrath, currently Artistic Director and Chief Executive of National Theatre Wales.

The cast has been confirmed for the first production in National Theatre Wales' fifth season - an anarchic, all-female, new version of Bertolt Brecht's 1939 anti-war play, Mother Courage and Her Children, performed in and around the Merthyr Labour Club in May 2015.

Five big productions will take centre-stage in National Theatre Wales' fifth season of work, announced this week. The productions reunite the company with some old friends, and introduce some new ones. They were announced in a series of digital messages sent to mobile phones throughout the week (2-6 March 2015).