John McGrath (playwright)

John McGrath (born June 1, 1935 in Birkenhead , † January 22, 2002 in Edinburgh ) was a British theater director , director and author .

Life

McGrath came from an Irish Catholic family. He graduated from Oxford University in 1959 in English and Education. At the student theater he worked as a director and author. Even his early pieces dealt with social problems.

From 1960 to 1965 he worked as a writer and director for the BBC . He then worked as a co-producer with Alan Dosser from the Everyman Theater in Liverpool with the aim of making theater interesting for workers. In 1971 McGrath founded the theater company 7:84 according to statistics that seven percent of the population owned 84 percent of the wealth. In the following years the collectively organized troupe, in which everyone was paid equally, toured the UK. In 1973 there was a division into an English and a Scottish troupe, while McGrath remained the artistic director and lead author of both groups.

In 1988 he resigned as artistic director, but continued to work as a writer and director. In the 1990s he played mostly with the Wildcat Theater Company , an offshoot of 7:84 . At the same time he produced films with his film company Freeway Films .

All McGrath's work was based on his socialist beliefs. He wanted to make popular political theater accessible to the part of the population who otherwise had neither the time, money nor opportunities to go to the theater.

Stage works (selection)

• A Man Has Two Fathers (World premiere June 1958, Oxford)
• The Tent (first performed October 19, 1958, Royal Court Theater)
• Why the Chicken (first performed August 26, 1959, Edinburgh)
• The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil (world premiere April 7, 1973, Edinburgh)
• Little Red Hen (first performed February 1975, St. Andrews Festival)
• Blood Red Roses (World premiere August 18, 1980, Edinburgh)
• The Baby and the Bathwater (world premiere September 1984, Dunbartonshire)
• Main Mhor: Woman of Skye (world premiere August 1987, Edinburgh)
• Reading Rigoberta (world premiere 19 August 1994, Edinburgh)

Radio plays

• 1973: John McGrath: Angel of the morning - Director: Rolf von Goth (radio play - SFB )
  • Speaker: Martin Held (Mr. Lodwick) and Cornelia Froboess (Darry)

literature

• Wolfgang Beck: McGrath, John . In: Manfred Brauneck, Wolfgang Beck (ed.): Theater Lexikon 2. Actors and directors, stage managers, dramaturges and stage designers . Rowohlt's encyclopedia published by Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag. Reinbek near Hamburg, August 2007, ISBN 978 3 499 55650 0 , p. 478 f.

Web links

• John McGrath in the Internet Movie Database (English)