The bard on the road

From two historic opera houses in Nevada to a variety of gymnasiums and multipurpose halls in schools throughout the Mountain West, the Utah Shakespearean Festival's latest touring production — a pared-down edition of "Romeo and Juliet" — is taking the Bard to the masses.

Mostly teenage masses.

This newly mounted touring show, packed aboard a truck and a 15-passenger van, is not unlike the horse-drawn productions that traipsed across the British countryside in Shakespearean times, according to USF education director Michael Don Bahr, a former high school drama teacher who also directed the production.

The scenery and props are designed around a "one-size-fits-all" concept. The production can work just as well in a remote junior high school multipurpose room as it can in the Grand Theatre (where it's scheduled for two of its nine remaining public performances).

The tour, which began Jan. 22, has already made swaths through much of Nevada and Arizona. Beginning Tuesday, it will make 19 stops in central and northern Utah, winding up April 17 in Richfield. By the time the 83-performance road trip ends, the troupe will have gone as far north as Wood River Middle School, near Sun Valley, Idaho, and as far south as Tucson, Ariz.

Eight actors from throughout the country (and with impressive credentials) portray 17 different roles. Trimmed down to a 75-minute length, the school performances are followed by brief, post-show discussions and three hands-on workshops ranging from stage combat to character development.

"The production is mostly aimed at junior high and high school youths, but we do get into some grade schools, too," said Bahr, interviewed via his cell phone while driving through central Utah en route to a meeting with several Ogden school teachers. (In conjunction with the tour, Bahr and his Cedar City-based staff mail out study guides and hold in-service training sessions with many of the school teachers, providing ways to get their students involved — and interested — before the production arrives.)

"The teenage themes in 'Romeo and Juliet' make this great for junior and senior high schools," Bahr said. "Shakespeare talks to the parents and the youth of the past, but it translates so clearly to the present because he's so universal. He's always relevant. There's always some modern-day, personal application that the audiences take away, especially with this show, and in the 'talk-back' session."