Among the works commissioned for the RSC-produced World Shakespeare Festival, directed by the RSC’s Deborah Shaw and coming up next year (April to September) as part of the London 2012 Festival associated with the Olympics:

Romeo and Juliet, directed by Monadhil Daood – Iraqi Theatre Company, Baghdad

Shakespeare’s great love story, set against a backdrop of conflict between families, communities and generations, finds new purchase in the soil of contemporary Iraq, where sectarian strife between Sunni and Shia, ignited and fuelled from outside, has left its population exhausted by a cycle of violence and revenge. Baghdad’s Iraqi Theatre Company will create a Romeo and Juliet for a new generation, infused with Iraq’s rich traditions of poetry, music and ritual.

For Monadhil’s previous work, see the Baghdad Iraqi Theatre‘s web site.  He also played a hammy Polonius in Sulayman Al-Bassam’s Al-Hamlet Summit and a terrifying Catesby in Al-Bassam’s Richard III.

UPDATE 7/8/11: Full details of the RSC’s World Shakespeare Festival to be announced in September, but it seems the RSC is one of the collaborators in the London 2012 festival; it’s listed as a partner on this show and others. There’s also going to be an RSC production that is explicitly international, provocatively titled, “What Country, Friends, is This?”