Men in tights are back on the road!

Men in tights - yes they're back, this time starring in a production of Romeo and Juliet, at a theatre near you! This year Second Age Education perform Shakespeare's big weepy, (or rock `n' roll and drugs and sex, depending on the director), with an all-male cast. Except Juliet, but then, a babe's gotta be a babe.

The play, which is on the Junior Cert course, is directed by Jim Culleton, programme director with Second Age. "I did see the Baz Luhrmann film a while ago," he says. "I really enjoyed it. It was very fast and exciting. But we aren't competing with it. What we're doing is very different."

Theatre is a live experience, says Culleton, and a lot of the audience will be coming to the theatre for the first time. "We want to celebrate the experience of theatre, make it challenging and energetic. And, unlike Leonardo da Caprio, we'll get to hear the wolf whistles when the audience see us." For a man in a nurses uniform? "Well, we decided to do an all-male cast for a number of reasons. For a start that's how it actually was in Shakespeare's day. Second, we wanted to create a world that is macho and aggressive. The whole production is very Gothic - it's also quite Italian - and there is a powerful sense of the heat of July, the month the play is set in."

It's also a love story, says Culleton. "The play contains some of the most beautiful love poems written in the English language, but it's also quite a violent play. Everyone is hot and edgey, the two families are at war with each other. When Romeo and Juliet meet they fall in love, and their love is very explosive. It's a love experienced in a violent world, and one which ends quite violently."

As always, there will be an opportunity for students to ask questions after each performance. "We tend to get very incisive questions from the audience", says Culleton. "They ask us about character motivation or choices made for the production - why it's designed the way it is, or why a certain scene was done in a particular way.

Culleton will facilitate three workshops for teachers on teaching Shakespeare in the classroom this year. "We'll be looking at different ideas and approaches. They are always very popular and tend to book up fast, so anyone who is interested should get in touch as soon as possible." The phone number is (01) 679 8542.

Each teacher attending a performance will receive a resource pack.

Last year, between Othello and The Merchant of Venice, Second Age performed before about 43,000 students. This year's tour runs from Tuesday, February 3rd, to Friday, March 13th. "To facilitate schools we'll have shows at 10am, 2pm and 8pm. Eight shows a week, all that tragedy and killing yourself, I'm expecting it to be pretty exhausting."