Reverting to old-school entertainment in an interesting twist of the Bard's works, No Refund Theatre (NRT) plans to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.

NRT will perform the new and offbeat versions of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) at 111 Forum as a Red Cross Benefit for Hurricane Relief.

"[It's] a hilarious bullet train through all of the Bard's works," David Bonner (sophomore-theatre) said.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) is a full-length play written in 1987 and originally performed by the founding members of the Reduced Shakespeare Company. The group still performs today, having written The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged) and The Complete History of America (abridged).

"I love the presentation of all 16 comedies as a single play. The first time I read [it], I laughed aloud, further proving my roommate's theory that I'm insane," John Newman (freshman-theatre) said.

The play is a comedic interpretation of Shakespeare's work in two acts. Some of the pieces are either performed at a fast pace, combined with other plays or changed in setting.

"The [performance] ranges everywhere from a slapstick and cross-dressing-ridden Romeo and Juliet, to a truncated version of Hamlet performed backwards," Newman said.

Coming up with the idea to do a hurricane benefit performance, James Marsh (freshman-theater) said he couldn't think of the "exact light-bulb moment" when the idea occurred to him.

"I just thought that there should be more events where people can go and enjoy themselves that could double as fundraisers and a theater production could interest a lot of people," he said.

With the help of Bonner and Karen Durst, associate professor of theatre, only a third actor and crew was needed to stage the production.

Bonner said, as far as challenges go, the cast and crew have experienced some "snags" with public relations, problems with space reservations and schedules, and even conflicts within the group.

There is no director for this performance, with all the actors working together.

"We all had separate visions of what we wanted, and we each had to forget our egos in order to make it work," Newman said.

NRT hopes to draw the audience into this performance of Shakespeare.

"Needless to say, there will be a lot of audience participation, as well as some improvisation by the players," Newman said.