World Shakespeare Festival at The Edinburgh International Festival this August - MACBETH, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, THE RAPE OF LUCRECE

The World Shakespeare Festival opens Monday 23 April and the UK is set for its largest ever celebration of Shakespeare. The Edinburgh International Festival's three contrasting takes on Shakespeare at Festival 2012 will form a key part of the World Shakespeare Festival in Scotland this August.

TR Warszawa’s spectacular 2008: Macbeth; Dmitry Krymov’s riotous mingling of two works into A Midsummer Night’s Dream (As you Like it); and Camille O Sullivan’s one person twist on The Rape of Lucrece come to the Edinburgh International Festival this August.

The World Shakespeare Festival is a celebration of Shakespeare as the world's playwright, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in an unprecedented collaboration with leading UK and international arts organisations.

Over 3000 artists from 47 nations will gather in the Scottish capital this year for Edinburgh International Festival 2012 (Thursday 9 August to Sunday 2 September) to share the live experience of theatre, dance, opera and music with audiences from approximately a third of the world’s nations.

Directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna, TR Warszawa’s multi-media version of the “Scottish play”, 2008: Macbeth is torn out of the highlands and thrust into the Middle East. Spectacular pyrotechnics, immersive video effects and an extraordinary, layered soundscape playing tricks on the ear transform Shakespeare’s web of politics, ambition and the supernatural into a contemporary living theatrical film at Royal Highland Centre’s Lowland Hall, a vast arena being converted into a theatrical space to house this production among others too large or complex to be staged in the city’s conventional theatre spaces.

From Russia comes Dmitry Krymov’s new interpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (As you Like it). Dmitry Krymov is a director, artist and designer whose visually stunning productions have established him as one of the most original directorial voices of his generation. The production promises a joyous combination of incompatible things: dumbstruck actors, suppressed emotions running riot, masterly solecism, divine blundering and, finally, craftsmen transformed into poets...

Chanteuse, recording artist and star of the Fringe, Camille O’Sullivan is joined by long time collaborator Feargal Murray on theatrical adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragic poem The Rape of Lucrece. Directed by Elizabeth Freestone this one woman show promises to be an hypnotic evening of song and story telling.

Jonathan Mills, Edinburgh International Festival Director said: “We are delighted to be a part of such a global celebration of Shakespeare. He remains a huge inspiration for artists from around the world, and it’s a great pleasure to be presenting such exciting international interpretations of his work at the Festival this summer.”

Tickets and information: +44 (0)131 473 2000 / eif.co.uk