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37 plays in 37 languages at Shakespeare’s Globe for 2012 festival

London SE1 website team

"The whole world is coming to the Globe and it's absolutely thrilling," said Dominic Dromgoole, artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe, as he announced the Globe to Globe season.

The Bankside replica playhouse will celebrate the London 2012 Olympics by presenting all 37 of Shakespeare's plays – each in a different language.

"It's a feast of wonderful stories; a wild carnival of cultural interaction," said Dromgoole as he announced the litany of participating nations and theatre companies.

The six-week Globe to Globe season begins on 21 April with a South African stage adaptation of Shakespeare's poem Venus & Adonis. Isango Ensemble's production will use six languages.

On Sunday 22 April the Globe will hold its annual free open day on the eve of Shakespeare's birthday which will feature a sonnet cycle to include as many languages as possible which aren't represented in the series of 37 plays and a poem.

The cycle of 37 plays begins on 23 April with a Maori production of Troilus and Cressida which will star Rawiri Paratene.

The world's newest nation – South Sudan – will be represented at the festival, as will Afghanistan whose Roy-e-Sab company will leave Kabul for the first time to bring The Comedy of Errors to Bankside.

Other participating nations and territories are Albania, Argentina, Bangladesh, Belarus, Brazil, China, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Poland, Russia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, the USA and Zimbabwe.

Each play will get two or three performances on the Globe stage and the festival organisers will encourage London's international communities to come to Bankside to see and hear Shakespeare performed in their own language.

At the height of the festival the Globe will have more than 80 actors rehearsing and performing in the building on a single day. The theatre has yet to seal a deal for hotel accommodation for all the visiting companies.

As usual prices start at £5 for a groundling ticket. £100 will buy you access to the yard for all 38 productions.

Globe to Globe is part of the larger-scale World Shakespeare Festival which runs from April to November and is also linked to the Cultural Olympiad's London 2012 Festival which starts on Midsummer's Day and continues until the closing of the Paralympic Games in September.

Shakespeare's Globe's own 2012 season will be six weeks shorter than normal and will start in early June with Henry V.

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