High Street to be pedestrianised during Kilkenny Arts Festival

In keeping with its pioneering, forward looking outlook, Kilkenny Arts Festival is taking over High Street this year.
For two days, during the 10 day long event, the street will be pedestrian-only with dancers, street performers, musicians and much fun thanks to a huge cast of entertainers.
“People will get a chance to see what the street would be like if it was pedestrianised on a full-time basis,” Cormac Larkin of the arts festival said.
He is also very enthused about Shakespeare in the Castle Yard.
“This is groundbreaking with an Irish theatre company, Rough Magic designing their production of ‘A Midsummer’s Night Dream’ in the space.
“This is a unique event and one which the people of Kilkenny; families, children, cousins, everyone should come and see for what will be a joyous occasion,” he said.
Directed by Lynne Parker and created specially for the Castle Yard, it will offer outrageous proof that Shakespeare is for life, not just for the Leaving Cert.
Spirits, lovers, tyrants, fools – which is which?
Under Lynne Parker’s direction, Rough Magic’s dynamic new creative ensemble of actors and designers give us Shakespeare’s most magical comedy.
From within the walls of the Castle Yard springs a parallel reality as the natural forces of magnetism and electricity run wild; a topsy turvy universe ignited by incandescent language, where the laws of physics warp, the mind plays tricks, and civilization crumbles beneath a crazy bunch of characters who don’t know which way to turn. We mortals may have meddled with nature too long.
Dates
Thursday 9 August 8pm (preview); Friday 10 August 8pm; Saturday 11 August 8pm; Sunday 12 August 8pm; Tuesday 14 August 8pm; Wednesday 15 August 8pm; Thursday 16 August 8pm; Friday 17 August 8pm and Saturday 18 August 8pm
Castle Yard.
This year make an attempt to immerse yourself in the huge span of events.