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 is being performed in New York but it will be one of the highlights of the HighTide Festival when the celebration of theatre returns in an extended form.

The play by Mike Daisey, which will be at The Cut on May 5 and 6, looks at the former CEO of Apple and how his work shaped the lives of so many, while he also shares stories of his own journey to China to investigate the factories where millions work to make iPhones and iPods.

On Tuesday, festival artistic director Steven Atkinson announced it would be one of 17 world and European premiere productions on show this year.

The popular festival was extended from a long weekend to a two-week showcase last year, but after becoming a national portfolio organisation of Arts Council England, it has been able to expand from four shows to 18.

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.'

Other highlights include Laura Poliakoff's debut play Clockwork, which looks at caring for the elderly, and Ella Hickson's return to the HighTide Festival with the world premiere of her new play Boys, which looks at four boys as they face the real world.

Clockwork will be at The Studio, in The Cut for 10 showings and Boys will be at the Main House, at The Cut, for six performances.

Other shows at The Cut include Organs of Little Apparent Importance by sound designer Jon McLeod, and featuring contributions from students at Halesworth Middle School, Mudlarks by Vickie Donoghue, and Binary, two short plays by Alexandra Wood and Ian McHugh.

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, in collaboration with the Public Theater Emerging Writers Group. It will also premiere new chain play The Best Years of Your Life by nabokov, and two new pieces of poetry-stand-up-theatre by Philip Wells The Fire Poet.

Other shows include The Adventure, at The Printworks, Educating Ronnie, at The Cut's Studio, and Seizing Cinderella at the Main House in The Cut,

There will also be a series of talks including a symposium with the University of East Anglia, the British Theatre Consortium and Central School of Speech and Drama on the current state of new writing.

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

For ticket details, including pay what you can events, visit www.hightide.org.uk or call 020 7566 9767.