EIF unveils 'more compact' line-up following budget uncertainty

Make It Happen will run at the Festival Theatre from August 1-9, after previewing at Dundee Rep in late July, while Mary, Queen of Scots will run at the Festival Theatre from August 17-17.

Other theatre shows in the programme include a reworking of Handspring Puppet Company’ 1995 show of Faustus In Africa!, Crow’s Theatre’s Shakespeare adaptation As You Like It: A Radical Retelling, and Simon McBurney and Crystal Pite’s dance trilogy Figures In Extinction, which is produced by Nederlands Dans Theater and Complicité.

Cutting the Tightrope, a collection of short plays about censorship in the arts that premiered at the Arcola Theatre in 2024, will also run at the festival, as will Belgian company FC Bergman’s wordless piece Works and Days.

The festival’s opera programme comprises the previously announced Opera Queensland production of Orpheus and Eurydice, and the UK premiere of Book of Mountains and Seas, an adaptation of an ancient Chinese myth from composer Huang Ruo, director Basil Twist and Danish choir Ars Nova Copenhagen.

The dance programme also includes work from disabled Australian dancer Dan Daw, Lebanese-French dance company Maqamat and Danish choreographer Kim Brandstrup.

Speaking to The Stage, festival programme director Roy Luxford said the festival would still “entertain and spark discussion” despite its smaller size, and that the extra funding would enable the festival to bounce back next year.

Luxford said: “Since Covid, we have had year-to-year funding from Creative Scotland. Now, we are back to multi-year funding, which means we can plan effectively, particularly for those large-scale projects.”