Introducing National Theatre Wales

On the Writers' Guild website, Othniel Smith reports on John E McGrath's meeting with Welsh Guild members - he's the artistic director of National Theatre Wales.

When asked the vital question, from the Guild’s point of view, of whether writers were the most important part of the company, McGrath replied that it is ‘the event’ which matters most. He was critical of play development culture in which a submitted script goes through several drafts without ever reaching an audience. There are around seven up-front play commissions for the National Theatre Wales’s first-year programme but writers will be involved in most of the other productions, either as dramaturgs, or when called in by performance- or installation-art specialists at a late stage in the development of their pieces.

(Photo of John E McGrath by Paul Rees)