Companies bringing Shakespeare, Twain to the stage

William Shakespeare and Mark Twain are coming to Vegas. The literary legends will be celebrated by two theater companies that believe their classics still hold relevance.

The Utah Shakespearean Festival Education Tour is staging Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" at the College of Southern Nevada on Friday and Saturday; the Rainbow Company Youth Theatre presents "Mark Twain's Nevada" for a week at the Reed Whipple Cultural Center, beginning Saturday.

"What's important about Shakespeare is that he's talking about human beings just like us," says "Twelfth Night" director Ann Tully, who also directed last year's festival presentation of "Romeo and Juliet."

"Even though it's 400 years ago, people have not changed that much. We still learn the same life lessons."

Conceding a smidge to those whose idea of culture is HBO on a big-screen TV, however, Tully has shortened the play by about an hour -- to 70 minutes. She also has rearranged a few words here and there.

"But all directors do that," she says.

"Mark Twain's Nevada" is an entire step removed from Twain's work. Written, choreographed and directed by Las Vegas resident Karen McKenney, it's a 50-minute play exploring the time Twain -- then known only as Samuel Clemens -- spent in Virginia City in the 1860s, after his brother was appointed territorial secretary by President Lincoln.

Twain came to Nevada to strike it rich as a silver miner.

"He was a miserable failure," Kenney says, and fortunately for us, too -- because the dude's fallback was writing. (He became a star reporter at the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, launching his literary career.)

"Shakespeare and Mark Twain are where we come from," McKenney says. "They're the whole foundation of what today's literature and art is built on, and there's still an awful lot of wealth to be gained."

Contact reporter Corey Levitan at clevitan@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0456.