ALL of the world’s a stage – but the North East will occupy a significant chunk of it when the World Shakespeare Festival takes place next year, coinciding with the Olympic Games.

The Sage Gateshead, Northern Stage and the Theatre Royal will play host to five new festival productions between June 26 and July 28, 2012.

All will be either produced or commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) which has forged strong links with the region since 1977.

The World Shakespeare Festival will form part of the London 2012 Festival which is to be the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad.

Launched yesterday at the British Museum in London, it was described as a celebration of Shakespeare as the world’s playwright.

Michael Boyd, artistic director of the RSC, which is producing the festival in collaboration with other leading UK and international arts organisations, said: “Shakespeare is no longer English property.

“He is the favourite playwright and artist of the whole world and studied at school by half the world’s children.

“People of all races, creeds and continents have chosen to gather around his work to share stories of what it is like to be human - to fall in love or fall from grace, to be subject to the abuse of power or to live with the dreams of angels in the shadow of our own mortality.

“The World Shakespeare Festival celebrates this most international of artists at a time when the eyes of the world will be on London, that most international of cities, for the Olympic Games.”

More than 50 arts organisations and more than 260 amateur groups involving around 7,200 people will take part in the festival, the latter through Open Spaces, working with the RSC and partner companies to put on Shakespeare productions at a host of venues around the country.

One Open Spaces attraction will be a full-scale production of West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein’s take on Romeo and Juliet, at The Sage Gateshead.