AN EDUCATION IN FIVE ACTS LOCAL SHAKESPEARE PRODUCTIONS ENRICH BOTH YOUNG AND OLD.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Writer

The scene: A tony but still teen-friendly dog-and-pony show at the Mark Taper Forum hosted by the Center Theatre Group and the National Endowment of the Arts.

The honoree: A British actor/playwright who died nearly 400 years ago with little money and without - alas and forsooth - cutting any kind of a deal for royalties.

The testimonials: That by reading, watching or performing a piece by said playwright, a person could accomplish anything short of regrowing hair, curing diseases or increasing sexual potency.

He kept me off the streets. He inspired me. He gave my life meaning and purpose.

He even got me through detention.

``The first time I ever dealt with William Shakespeare, I was in eighth grade in Hawthorne,'' says poet Dana Gioia the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. ``Sister Mary Damian, who was my nun, told me she couldn't understand a thing I was saying. So she kept me and a number of other boys after school and made us learn scenes from Shakespeare to improve our diction. I learned the Gravedigger's speech from 'Hamlet.' ''

Summertime is typically Shakespeare time anyway, but the Bard is here in an especially big way in 2004: under the stars at college campuses, accompanying the L.A. Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl (or is that the other way around?) visiting school auditoriums and even stopping off at military bases.

``This sort of represents the ultimate evolution of the program,'' says Gioia at the kickoff event of Shakespeare Comes to L.A. - a local outgrowth of the NEA's Shakespeare in American Communities tour. ``I'd love to do this elsewhere: provide not simply performances but free performances and create a festival where you've got multiple companies coming and going all over the country.''

The NEA effort, a co-venture with Shakespeare Festival, Los Angeles (SF/LA), brought a touring version of the Guthrie Theatre's production of ``Othello'' to California State University, Los Angeles, as well as the Acting Company's ``Richard III,'' which comes to UCLA's Freud Playhouse this weekend.

Of course, the SF/LA and NEA partnership highlights the summer Bard crush, but it's not as though L.A. would ever find itself Shakespeare deprived.

A production of ``Henry IV, Part 1'' by the Circle X company recently wrapped at SF/LA's downtown performance space. The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum typically performs at least two Shakespeare plays in repertory every summer from June to October; SF/LA does one. The Thousand Oaks-based Kingsmen Shakespeare Festival stages two performances outdoors on the campus of California Lutheran University, charging less than the price of a movie ticket.

Noise and NoHo

When summer comes to an end, the Valley's long-established classical company, A Noise Within, swings into action, performing a repertory season that includes one Shakespeare play per each performance season (this fall it's ``A Midsummer Night's Dream,'' followed by ``Julius Caesar'' in the spring). A Noise Within does not perform during the summer, but the company will stage ``A Midsummer Night's Dream,'' backed by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the L.A. Philharmonic playing Mendelssohn's ``Dream,'' on July 13.

Earlier this year, another company with an eye toward the classics entered the scene. The Antaeus Company opened its New Place Studio Theatre in the NoHo Arts District in February with a collection of Anton Chekhov one-act plays titled ``Chekhov X 4.'' In its 13-year history, Antaeus has never presented a fully staged Shakespeare production, but as part of its Mayfest festival this year, the company's younger Academy troupe is performing ``Twelfth Night'' through June 20.

If you're keeping score, that's four local companies (five if you count Kingsmen) with a stated interest in performing, training and educating both actors and audiences in the classics.

``The students love it. They absolutely love it, and they are some of our most expressive audiences,'' says Ellen Geer, artistic director of the Theatricum Botanicum. ``They lean forward. If they're bored, they wiggle. They help us totally fine-tune a piece.''

`Winter's' summer

By including the lesser-known romance ``The Winter's Tale'' as part of its summer season and touring school program, the Theatricum faces something of a challenge. But that challenge, according to Geer, comes from the teachers more than from their students.

``We're trying to open up the teachers to something more than 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' '' says Geer. ``They're not as open to it, and that's mainly because they don't have the time to do the research themselves.''

To fill that gap, the Theatricum's School Days program does that research for the teachers ``and presents it in a way that helps them through this process,'' Geer adds.

School Days includes workshops in everything from sword-fighting and dance to a time-traveling visit from Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth themselves, who drolly comment on the manners and fashions of the ``visitors'' they have encountered. Things have changed a bit, Shakespeare and the queen note, since Renaissance England.

A Noise Within's educational programs take place primarily at the company's theater. According to founder and co-artistic director Julia Rodriguez Elliott, A Noise Within is trying to develop a curriculum that includes many educational components so that the experience of seeing a play appeals to more than just budding actors.

``We find a lot of kids who come here are not coming from drama classes,'' says Elliott. ``They're coming from English and history classes, from French classes when we do Moliere. We're trying to develop a teaching tool for the younger grades, and taking a play and applying it to science, math and social studies. We can start involving them a little earlier than we have thus far.''

They also keep actors fresh. Whether in workshop or performance, a classic - be it a play by Shakespeare, Thornton Wilder, Ibsen or Moliere - is likely going to get an actor's juices flowing more rapidly than a few lines in a film or TV series. Which is why L.A.-based actors with stage training so often return to their classical roots via a class, a workshop, a production.

And that's why an organization like Antaeus exists, according to Jeanie Hackett, the company's co-artistic director.

``The work we do is connecting to something that makes us feel whole,'' says Hackett. ``The words we have to say on TV just aren' interesting. For our company and for our students, this is a way to keep our juices alive.''

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

Finding the Bard around town

Shakespeare productions now playing and upcoming:

``Richard III,'' touring production by the Acting Company, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, UCLA's Freud Playhouse; 8 p.m. Wednesday, Edwards Air Force Base; 8 p.m. June 26, Clifton Middle School, 226 S. Ivy Ave., Monrovia. Free. For information, call [phone].

``The Winter's Tale,'' Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga. Free performances: 3 p.m. Sunday and June 27. Other performances: $14 to $25. Production runs through Sept. 23. For information, call [phone].

``Twelfth Night,'' Shakespeare Festival/L.A., Pershing Square, 532 S. Olive St., L.A. July 14-18. Tickets free with a canned food donation; South Coast Botanic Garden, 26300 S. Crenshaw Blvd., Palos Verdes, July 29-Aug. 1. $15. Call for reservations: [phone].

The Antaeus Company at the New Place Studio Theatre, 4900 Vineland Ave., North Hollywood, is also performing ``Twelfth Night'' at 2 p.m. Sunday. $15. [phone].

``Love's Labour's Lost,'' Kingsmen Shakespeare Festival, June 25-July 15, campus of California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks. Tickets $8 to $50. Call [phone].

``Henry V,'' Kingsmen Shakespeare Festival, California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, July 9-Aug. 1, $8 to $50. Call [phone].

``A Midsummer Night's Dream,'' Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga. 8 p.m. Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 25. $14 to $25. Call [phone].

The Los Angeles Philharmonic and A Noise Within present a fully staged production of ``A Midsummer Night's Dream'' with Mendelssohn's music, Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood. 8 p.m. July 13. $5 to $40. Call [phone].

- E.H.

CAPTION(S):

5 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Fourth-grader Sophia Odegaard watches as the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum's Elizabeth Tobias holds court as Queen Elizabeth I.

(2 -- 4) In the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum's School Days program, clockwise from far left, Ted Barton plays Shakespeare, actor Francis Reyes addresses students in the amphitheater, and the children engage in some spirited improvisation during a workshop at the Topanga site.

(5) Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, remembers how learning Shakespeare improved his poor diction as a young student.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer

Box:

Finding the Bard around town (see text)