Kully Thiarai, artistic director of National Theatre Wales, has resigned. She leaves the company she joined in 2016 to become the new creative director of Leeds 2023.
The Yorkshire Post published the announcement on June 14th.
Big welcome back to Yorkshire for @kully_ntw – announced in today’s @yorkshirepost as creative director of @leeds_2023 pic.twitter.com/sPu2vJgDG2
— anitamorris (@anitamorris) June 14, 2019
The move will come as a surprise to some, but Kully Thiarai, who hails from Bradford, will be returning to her roots as an executive of one of the UK’s most exciting new creative ventures. She will leave National Theatre Wales by the end of 2019.
However, for many the resignation will mark the latest chapter in a debate about the direction of National Theatre Wales, a debate that was punctuated in September of 2018 with the publication of a letter calling into question the creative vision, as well as the “Welshness”, of NTW, signed by over forty Welsh playwrights. Although the letter did not name Thiarai by name, the ensuing debate threatened to embroil and overshadow her directorship, and resulted in a complex and often heated public conversation that stretched from Wales Arts Review to the pages of The Guardian, and from Arts Council Wales to BBC Radio Four’s Front Row.
More to follow…
For more Wales Arts Review coverage of National Theatre Wales, including news, reviews, and interviews, click here.
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