Evening-length story ballets are box-office fodder—or would be if ballet were only to oblige. But, as Balanchine famously observed, the idiom doesn’t do mothers-in-law, much less the “murder, sex, and unsuitable lovers” (as biographer Antonia Fraser has it) that embroiled Mary, Queen of Scots. Nevertheless, Bloody Mary is the subject of the Scottish Ballet’s headliner for the Edinburgh International Festival this August, before the premiere takes off across Scotland through October. To avoid or at least soften likely pitfalls, the enterprising company is doubling up on everything. Michael P. Atkinson (Sufjan Stevens’ arranger for Justin Peck ballets) and Mikael Karlsson (composer of bouncy scores for several Alexander Ekman productions) will do the music. Resident choreographer Sophie Laplane is counting on opera director and dramaturge James Bonas to smooth out the plots and counterplots on which the everlasting Mary intrigue depends. And Mary, Queen of Scots features two heroine-villains: Queen Elizabeth and her wayward cousin. As the ballet’s anchor, these women are its best hope. —Apollinaire Scherr