The name is Shakespeare, William Shakespeare. Get used to that name. You are going to be seeing it a lot in these pages. For the next few weeks, there is a star-crossed convergence of bardic works. There will be more Shakespeare than you can shake a spear at. Playwise, that's not a bad position to find yourself in. The problem comes in scheduling it all into your busy calendar.

You are thinking, "If only there was some kind of guide to all the plays. Something that would help me in my scheduling." Fear not, gentle reader, for we have divined your thought before it was formed and have created such a guide - the article you doth read at this moment. Read on!

Linn-Benton Community College shakes things into gear Feb. 23 with a kid-friendly version of "Much Ado About Nothing." One of Shakespeare's most popular comedies, the play also deals with some fairly heady and dramatic stuff, most of which has been pared down in this production, which has been playing for grade-school kids throughout the Willamette Valley since mid-February. The show on Feb. 23, and another March 2, are for kids to return with their families, or for kids who did not get to see it through school.

The focus of the LBCC production is on Shakespeare's main story of love gained, loved lost through lack of trust, and loved gained again through making amends. Returned from the war, three soldiers' thoughts turn to love. Claudio becomes engaged to Hero while Benedick and Beatrice, who have vowed never to marry, fight their attraction to each other. The wedding day approaches, but the evil Don John is determined to put an end to all the happiness. He frames Hero to make it appear to Claudio that she has been unfaithful. Accused at the altar, Hero swoons and is mistaken to be dead. Beatrice and Benedick, with the advice of the friar and Hero's mother, conceal the truth about Hero's "death" in order to get back at Claudio and unmask the villain.

The source material for this play is an adaptation of Shakespeare's work by Lois Burdett that converted the play into rhyming couplets. Director Jean Bonifas converted those couplets back into stage form by putting the couplets into the mouths of the correct characters and breaking the action back into dramatic scenes.

The result is a free-spirited romp through Shakespeare's tale - a romp that has a lot of fun with its source material while remaining faithful to it as well. And best of all, audience participation is built into the show. In several scenes, children from the audience (who have been picked and coached before the show starts) are brought on stage to play parts as extras. Other children in the audience are encouraged throughout the play to boo the villains and cheer the heroes and call out warnings to characters - "What? Someone's behind the tree?" The actors engage in nicely timed stage business involving checking out the tree. The initial actor turns and shrugs, "I don't see anyone behind that tree." "He's right there!" the kids yell back in exasperation.

Sometimes the audience participation goes a little too far. The cast agrees that the one time they nearly cracked up was when a love-smitten Benedick says, "Here she comes, my Beatrice … isn't she beautiful?"

"No!" one of the kids in the audience shouted at the top of his lungs.

The play runs between 48 to 55 minutes, depending how boisterous the audience is and how well the actors can shepherd the kids around. The kids, needless to say, are a wild card. Some are naturals on stage, some need more nurturing, and some need little encouragement at all. One young girl, assigned to a crowd scene, broke free of the pack to move upstage center where she launched into a Britney Spears dance-off, pursued by an actor trying to get her back in line.

Shakespeare, no doubt, would have been laughing hardest of all.

"Much Ado About Nothing" plays at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 23 and March 2 at Takena Theater, Linn-Benton Community College, 6500 Pacific Blvd. S.W., Albany. Admission is $7 for adults and $4 for children under age 18. Tickets are available at Sid Stevens Jewelers, Rice's Pharmacy, Takena Theater box office or by phone at 917-4531.

Albany Civic Theater joins the unofficial Shakespeare festival Feb. 28 with "The Tragedy of King Lear," a play not likely to be tackled by Bonifas and crew any time soon.

One of Shakespeare's most demanding and rewarding plays, "Lear" is based on a legendary king from around 800 B.C. Vain and blinded to the true nature of his daughters, King Lear wants to retire. He comes up with a rather ill-advised plan to split his kingdom between his three daughters. Two of the daughters, Goneril and Regan, flatter the king on his plan, even as they secretly are thinking of all the ways they can connive against it. Cordelia, Lear's third daughter, sees the trouble on the horizon and speaks against her father's plan. For her trouble, Lear banishes Cordelia. Unfortunately for him, all of Cordelia's predictions come true and Lear soon finds himself without a kingdom, without a home, and finds few loyal friends.

Perhaps no other role in Shakespeare runs an actor through so many levels of emotional turmoil. Beginning as a prideful vain king, he has everything stripped from him as he descends into the depths of madness and despair and back out again, only then achieving his true greatness, not as a king, but as a man.

"We only put the play together the other day, act one and two as a whole," said Mark Summers, who plays Lear. "It was exhausting. Playing this part is like standing on the edge of an avalanche that is forming beneath you. You watch it start to go and realize there's nothing you can do but ride it out."

Summers, a mainstay in the local theater scene, makes the most of his chance to ride the avalanche. Raging against the winds and elements in the famous scene where he wanders the moors, his Lear screams defiance against the cruel fate that he has largely created for himself as he fights to hold onto the last shreds of his vanity. He doesn't realize he must shed them before he can regain his humanity.

It promises to be a virtuoso performance. Summers is supported by a solid cast and thoughtful staging by John Baur who has wanted to direct "King Lear" for at least two years.

The play will run for three weekends at 8 p.m. Feb. 28 and March 1, 7, 8, 13, 14 and 15. A matinee will take place at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, March 9. Admission is $8 general; $6 for those older than age 60 or younger than 18. Tickets are available at Sid Stevens Jewelers, Rice's Pharmacy, or at the ACT box office, which opens 45 minutes before curtain.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival opens on Feb. 28 with only one Shakespeare play, "Romeo and Juliet," out to the starting gate. Later Shakespeare productions will include "Richard II," "Antony and Cleopatra" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

A review of the opening weekend will appear in the Entertainer March 7. For a complete play schedule and ticket information, visit the Web site at www.osfashland.org or call the box office at 541-482-4331.

Oregon State University's "All Shakespeare" season continues March 6, 7, 8 and April 3, 4, 5 with "Two Gentlemen of Verona," Shakespeare's tale of how the friendship between two young men is tested and stretched as they each become involved with affairs of the heart. All shows begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Withycombe Theater at 30th Street and Campus Way. More details will appear in next week's Entertainer.