Early Bird Special : Shakespeare, L.A. sought an audience before it decided on a play or arranged for a theater. Now ticket buyers are seeing ‘Taming of the Shrew.’

When Geoffrey Forward mailed his offer in May, he knew that he was breaking every rule in the book.

His letter began: “We are asking you to do something unusual for this, our first produc tion. We are asking you to purchase tickets before we have made our final choice of a play and before we have made our final arrangements for a theater.”

“Unusual”? How about “outrageous”? “Nuts”?

But as Forward sees it, relaxing on a patio at San Marino’s Huntington Gardens, it was the only way to get the ball rolling for his fledgling company, called Shakespeare, L.A.

Having developed subscription seasons for several theaters--from a professional company attached to his alma mater, the University of Utah, to the Shakespeare Society in West Hollywood--Forward knows all about theater’s business side: telemarketing, demographic targeting and the rest.

And in fact, Forward’s stratagems only seem crazy. “I took a wild chance and sent out the mailing,” he says. “But we received a good response.” Good enough that he was able to proceed with plans to open the company’s first production, “The Taming of the Shrew,” Wednesday for a four-week run at Woodland Hills’ Richard Basehart Playhouse. (Shakespeare, L.A. then moves “Shrew” to the Pasadena Presbyterian Church in September.)

In conversation, this handsome, “over 30” actor-director-teacher (he has taught Shakespeare and voice in his Van Nuys studio for 17 years) nimbly shifts between the numbers game of building a company to the meanings of and controversies surrounding “Shrew.”

To those who say that there’s no demand for a classical troupe in the Valley, Forward counters that he’s doubled his projected mailing list from 1,600 to more than 3,200, and that subscribers are signing up. All of this, he notes, was aided by the donation of unnamed Valley theaters’ mailing lists--thus letting him target loyal Valley theatergoers.

To those who say that theaters need public or corporate funding to survive, Forward suggests that is nonsense. “A theater, I think, is defined by its audience. That’s why we’re relying on, and building upon, a base of subscribers. This is a popular medium. If the seats are empty, why are you doing the play? If Shakespeare’s own Globe Theatre didn’t sell tickets, the show closed.”

To those who say that “The Taming of the Shrew” is an outdated piece of Elizabethan male-chauvinist claptrap, Forward argues, “See our staging.”

The common view is that this comedy of sexual politics is a primer in male domination, in which womanizing Petruchio puts his hotheaded wife, Kate, in her place. Forward, however, says that his approach emphasizes “the partnership in which Kate and Petruchio painfully come to terms with each other. She realizes that she can keep her identity, and at the same time, for the sake of society, show allegiance to her husband.”

Forward’s defense reveals his other identity as a student of Shakespeare. He has been a resident “reader,” or researcher, at the Huntington Library for nine years, and is well acquainted with the background material for “Shrew.”

“Shakespeare drew from a European folk tale about a husband who married a wealthy but unruly wife. Because of her position, he couldn’t beat her, so he skinned one of his animals, wrapped her in the skin, and said, ‘I can’t beat you, but I can beat my hide.’ What Shakespeare rejected was this beating, which was very, very common then. We must see him within his own era. It’s clear that his view of women was unusually enlightened.”

Forward says he enjoys the “risky edge of entrepreneurship” in his five-year plan of moving the company from an Actors’ Equity 99-seat contract to a full Equity contract in a large house. He’s tossing the die again by casting dwarf actor Stevie Lee Richardson as Petruchio.

“At the Saturday workshop I led in Huntington Gardens,” he says, “Stevie Lee did some scenes that were so powerful and dynamic that I knew I had to have him as a lead actor. He can be strong one moment, then romantic the next--perfect for Petruchio. This also plays against the notion of Petruchio as a wife beater. At the same time, we’re not for a moment getting comedy out of his size.”

But there’s still a nagging question about another missive that Forward recently mailed, referring to “Shrew” as “excellent for children.” Come again?

“Well, yes, it’s bawdy and full of innuendo, but it’s also bouncy and fun, and kids love that. C’mon, they watch ‘L.A. Law,’ so they know what’s going on.”

Where and When

What: “The Taming of the Shrew.”

Location: Richard Basehart Playhouse, 21028-B Victory Blvd., Woodland Hills.

Hours: 8 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays through Aug. 27.

Price: $12.

Call: (818) 704-1845.