Serving a Cup of Classics : Shakespeare nights at Book Grinders bookstore and coffee bar offer crowds drama and actors the chance to be closer to the audience.

In the world of Shakespearean England, theater was no mere diversion for the privileged few but a lusty, popular spectacle attended by rich and poor alike. Throwing themselves into the action, the audience cheered their heroes and reviled the villains, behaving like fans at a sports event.

While better mannered than their Elizabethan forebears, the crowds on Shakespeare nights at the Book Grinders bookstore and coffee bar in Sherman Oaks are no less enthusiastic. Perched on folding chairs, leaning against bookcases, they watch raptly as a group of actors wearing jeans and clutching playbooks evokes the hush of a theater and speaks the poetry of the Bard.

“I love Shakespeare--and I appreciate these actors’ enthusiasm,” says Dory Pally of Sherman Oaks. “I’ve been to every one of these readings.”

Held on the first Tuesday of each month, these evenings have become an integral part of the shop’s calendar of events, which include poetry readings, children’s storytelling and musical performances. Though the latter are not uncommon for a coffeehouse culture program, the ambitious theater-amid-the-tomes is something novel.

How it came about is a drama in itself. Juli Michaud, manager of the bookstore which opened in June, recalls deciding that she wanted Shakespeare in some form to be part of her lineup of events. The next day, in walked Michael Barak, a Van Nuys actor trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. Barak offered his directorial and organizational services on the spot.

Michaud supplies scripts and programs and does promotion for the readings, which are staged in a central lounge area with rows of spectators on two sides. Barak rounds up the actors, most of them fellow members of Beverly Hills-based Theatre 40 or A Company of Their Own, a group that has performed Shakespeare at the L.A. County Arboretum. Since August, the Strolling Players, as the cast is known, have performed three plays: “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Julius Caesar” and “Richard II.” On Nov. 3, they will present “As You Like It.”

For the audience, many of whom live in the neighborhood, the evening might begin with a cappuccino and a turkey sandwich from the coffee bar. Once the program starts, all beverage machines are silenced. And while readings by actors lounging on couches may not compare with going to Stratford, there are plenty of compensations.

“My two boys, who are 10 and 13, like being intimate with actors,” reports Harry Klein of North Hollywood. “They like the drama unfolding so close to them.” He adds that these presentations “require more of your imagination, like radio drama; you have to participate more.”

For the actors, too, the bare-bones approach has its merits. Michael Anthony Leavy of Studio City, who has recently performed onstage in two L.A. Shakespeare productions, joined the Strolling Players for “Richard II.” Acknowledging the limitations of the format (“You’ve got only your voice; you can’t strut and pose”), he points out that a simple reading “can heighten the poetry, which sometimes gets lost in the onstage spectacle.” He also appreciates being closer to his audience, and joining with them in “a shared act of creation.”

The choice of plays is made by Barak, who abridges them according to time constraints and cast size. He alternates comedies, tragedies and histories, though he may close 1993 with “The Tempest,” a romance, in order to avoid, he says, “ending the year on a tragic note.”

However it ends, the response to the Shakespeare evenings has been so positive (75 people showed up for “Julius Caesar” alone) that Barak and Co. recently presented Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”--the first, they hope, in a new Book Grinders series of “non-Shakespeare classics” that’s slated for the third Wednesday of every month.

Meanwhile, though, in a forward-thinking book-and-brew house, the Bard has proven himself yet again as an entertainer for the ages.

In the words of Sumar Khan, a Shakespearean actor and teacher who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in Oxford and just happened to be at Book Grinders for “Richard II,” “To bring Shakespeare to the public is like Prometheus bringing fire down to mortals. The man was touched by God at birth.”

Where and When What: Shakespeare readings. Location: Book Grinders, 13321 Burbank Blvd., Sherman Oaks. Hours: 7 p.m., the first Wednesday of every month. Cost: Free. Call: (818) 988-4503.