The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs by Mike Daisey will feature at the sixth annual HighTide Festival

THE eyes of Apple and the technological world will be on Halesworth this May when the European premiere of a play about a computer visionary comes to the town.

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs will be one of the highlights of the sixth annual HighTide Festival.

The play by Mike Daisey looks at the former CEO of Apple and how his work has shaped our lives, while sharing stories of his own travels to China to investigate the factories where millions work to make iPhones and iPods and look at the cost of creating them.

Festival artistic director Steven Atkinson announced that as one of 17 world and European premiere productions for the sixth annual HighTide Festival in Halesworth.

He said: “This year the festival premieres new playwrights and new work with world-class partners The Public Theater, Nuffield Theatre, and Headlong, and with the most promising newer companies curious directive, Bad Physics, and nabokov.

“We preview new works that will tour to the Latitude Festival, to the Edinburgh Festival with Utter and macrobert, and Soho Theatre, and we will present the European premiere of Mike Daisey’s The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.”

This year is the first for the festival as a National Portfolio Organisation of Arts Council England and as a result the number of plays has been able to grow significantly. Other highlights include Clockwork from Steven Atkinson and Boys from Ella Hickson.

Halesworth’s Rifle Hall will welcome four new American plays, Perish by Stella Fawn Ragsdale, Neighbours by Branden Jacob-Jenkins, The Hour of Feeling by Mona Mansour and Bethany by Laura Marks.

HighTide Festival 2012 takes place at The Cut, The Rifle Hall and The Printworks from May 3-13.

For more details visit www.hightide.org.uk and call 020 7566 9767.