Bringing the Bard to Life : Children take to the stage in full Elizabethan costume as an exercise in learning to love Shakespeare. Teacher Dwight Protho says it works.

Remember slogging through “Julius Caesar” in junior high school? Or were you one of those high school students who found the teen-age romance of “Romeo and Juliet” and the violent murders of “Macbeth” separated from your world by a fog of time and language?

Few students can bring those dramas to life in their imaginations, and the sooner they’re gone the better. One student who was able to fill the words on the printed page with blood and breath was Dwight Protho. Now a teacher of history, English and drama at Hale Middle School, Protho has made a concerted effort to make the trip a little easier for students at Hale and other west San Fernando Valley schools.

“The schools make the mistake,” Protho says, “of trying to teach it as literature, analyzing it line by line. It’s the quickest way I know to turn kids off to Shakespeare. It has become great literature, but they forget the real purpose was playing it. That’s what brings it to life. It was meant to be in the theater.”

The secret, Protho believes, is putting Shakespeare on stage with student actors and crew. And he’s been doing it since 1981, with his L.A. Shakespeare for Kids. Originally utilizing just his own students, he soon branched out with invitations to students from other Valley elementary, junior high and high schools. Now his group is separate from the school system, although it is allowed to use school facilities since the program and performances are free. Protho’s audition announcements bring in 30 to 60 enthusiastic applicants for each of his productions.

Shakespeare for Kids has produced more than 30 plays in the past 15 years, often two winter productions, and sometimes one during the summer.

“It’s a totally free program,” Protho said. “It’s all volunteer work on my part, and various parents appear when needed. They help to build sets, make costumes and props. The actors range in age from as young as the second grade and as old as the 10th grade. The concept is to bring Shakespeare to as wide a number of children as possible, either through performing it or seeing it.”

Protho finds the enthusiasm of the students amazing, along with what he calls the miracle of what happens during the eight to 12 weeks it takes to stage each production.

“The kids are phenomenal. It just goes to show that we have this large, untapped reservoir of creativity, imagination, dedication and discipline.”

He has found that the students will tune in to Shakespeare if they are properly exposed to it. Former students who were involved in the earlier days of the program, he says, have returned to thank him for providing a turning point in their lives. Some even remember all of their lines, and say that they were changed by being exposed to Shakespeare in that way, at that time.

Two of Tanya Ball’s six children have been involved with the program over the past three years. Ball, of West Hills, also devotes time to the group, mainly working on costumes.

“I was a theater major in college,” Ball says, “and I was not even involved in Shakespeare then. And here my children started in sixth grade with it, and they love it. It seems to come easier for them than it did for me. It was hard for me because I was coming to it so late. He explains to them that ‘this is what Mr. Shakespeare meant.’ They’re not just saying lines up there. They’re living them, and feeling them, and understanding what they’re saying. He makes sure they know what they’re portraying up there. It’s very exciting to see.” Protho says, “It’s amazing to me that kids can understand Shakespeare at this level, and can make it understood by other people, that they’re able to act it as well as they do. Each one of these productions is a little miracle. In a dress rehearsal you never believe it’s going to happen, then suddenly in the performance they are doing things that you were trying to get them to do all along. They have a sense of holding back in rehearsal. At this age, it’s amazing. They seem to sense what they’ve got, and they save it for the performance.”

The productions are not mini-versions of the play, cut down to a vignette size. Each staging is full-length, running about two hours, and all are fully costumed in the Elizabethan style, which Protho believes is the best way to present them. Although the boys sometimes have misgivings about donning Elizabethan tights, Protho says they become too involved in the story and their characters to worry about it.

Protho believes in doing Shakespeare with as much authenticity as possible. He believes that authenticity, and Shakespeare’s basic simplicity, are the keys that open the plays up to students.

“Particularly in this country,” Protho states, “we have so many people who try to bring the plays down to the audience’s level, rather than having them rise up to the play.” Protho’s kids seem to make the leap easily.

“My purpose,” he says, “isn’t to turn out hundreds of little thespians or Shakespearean actors and actresses. It’s to expose kids to something. I’m happy to say I’ve made some Shakespeare lovers of quite a few kids.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

WHERE AND WHEN:

What: “Twelfth Night.”

Location: Hale Middle School, 23830 Califa St., Woodland Hills; Hamlin Elementary School, 22627 Hamlin St., West Hills.

Hours: 7 p.m. tonight, Saturday and Feb. 10 at Hale; Feb. 11 at Hamlin.

Price: Free.

Call: Information (818) 346-1851. (Hale Middle School).