This summer, thespian teens will grace Ballard with their Shakespearean presence as the Young Shakespeare Workshop will share its summer production of the romantic comedy, "Twelfth Night."

The performances will take place at Ballard Odd Fellows Hall, 1706 N.W. Market St., on July 25 at 7 p.m. and July 26 at 2 p.m.

In it’s 18th year, the Young Shakespeare Workshop is a collaboration of students from around the city put together to create a new community connected by the passion for language.

“Edward Call, a distinguished director, fell in love with Shakespeare’s words in high school and began the program to help kids get engaged with the beauty and power of english at it’s best,” said Darren Lay, current director of Young Shakespeare Workshop.

Lay adopted the program from Call six years after it began and has been running it since.

“The thing that I’ve found over the last 12 years is that it creates a community of young people who all have a shared passion and artistic skill even though they come from different areas in Seattle,” he said.

In their first year of the program, students audition and begin working with sonnets, progressing to speeches and scenes for seven weeks, five days a week, for three hours a day. They learn text, voice and take fencing classes ending the summer in a recital of sonnets, speeches and scenes.

As returning students they produce and perform a Shakespearean play, touring to a number of venues both indoor and out.

“The way the program is structured is that kids can participate in it over a period of years,” Lay said. “We have a lot of kids who come back as alumni and volunteer to help run the program as well as paid teachers when we have the funding.”

Proud of the number of students who’ve gone through their program and have gone to big schools, such as the Juilliard School, Lay said they bring back their skills with them.

It's also not just a summer program. During the academic year, Young Shakespeare provides before and after school residencies especially directed to schools without a drama program.

This year they have plans to work with language arts classes at Chief Sealth and Cleveland high schools who are studying "Romeo and Juliet" along with Cleveland’s newly formed drama club, which they hope to assist in producing a spring performance.

Other programs include their continuation of Tragicomedia, a new extension project in Spanish mirroring their first year Shakespeare program and the Revolving Company, a long-time production of "Romeo and Juliet" that includes both alumni and returning students, Lay said.

“This year we’re looking forward to surviving another year,” Lay said. “The program has always struggled financially. It’s a small program and the kids who participate work in depth over a period of years, but we’ve flown under the radar because it’s an artistically driven program.”