Oregon puts on a show Theater: Beginning as a two-play college project in 1935, Ashland's annual Shakespeare Festival is now an eight-month celebration of the Bard.

Behold the town a dead bard's plots sustain,

Where stage and stores his words do decorate,

Where green hills rise and sweet creek swiftly runs,

And far-flung strangers do yearly subscribe,

To gaze on spawn of two clans strangely wed,

And wonder: How hath Hamlet fathered hamlet?

The town is Ashland, perched on the edge of the Rogue River Valley opposite a gorgeous verdant hillside, roughly midway between San Francisco and Portland. On lazy afternoons, stray deer wander down its residential streets, while on the main drag, out-of-towners congregate in wistful pairs to peer at the window offerings of real-estate offices.

The bard is William Shakespeare, probable author of at least 36 plays, 154 sonnets and four long poems. (Most of those works were written in iambic pentameter, a poetic form that relies on 10-syllable lines like those above, but better.) He was born in 1564, died in 1616, and in neither word nor deed did he ever have anything to do with Oregon. But he is the reason that all the best bargains are long gone from real-estate windows.

The strange marriage that unites the Elizabethan dramatist with this handsome patch of semirural Northwest is the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a true marvel of cultural tourism.

It began in 1935, when a local college theater teacher named Angus Bowmer proposed that some of his students mount Fourth of July performances of "Twelfth Night" and "The Merchant of Venice." Bowmer produced, directed and played the merchant. Year by year, the Shakespeare Festival grew like a weed.

Maybe it was the professor's perseverance that made the difference, or maybe it was Ashland's history as a chautauqua town that was host to lectures by touring notables at the turn of the century.

At any rate, the festival has grown into an annual juggernaut that stretches more than eight months (this year, Feb. 21 to Nov. 2), occupies three theaters (one with the late Bowmer's name on it), employs 400 theater professionals, mounts more than 750 performances and sells more than 350,000 seats yearly. Bardway, the locals call it, and its alumni actors include William Hurt, Stacy Keach, Kyle MacLachlan and George Peppard.

The festival also boasts about 13,000 dues-paying members.

As the institution has grown, Ashland has evolved into a town of 17,000 that supports more than 50 bed-and-breakfast operations, two dozen restaurants (many with decidedly sophisticated menus and big-city prices), a dozen bookstores and an ever-expanding number of boutiques, galleries and other offshoots. And any spring, summer or fall night at 8 (if it's not a Monday, when the theaters are dark), the crosswalks fill with visitors strolling to the theater.

Ashland regulars know that the best way to arrange a trip here is to book theater tickets first -- and then book lodgings.

Still, if you show up in town without theater reservations, there is hope. Your best bet is the largest Shakespeare (and most narrowly Shakespearean) venue, the 1,200-seat Elizabethan Stage, which stages outdoor productions June through October. The toughest ticket is almost always the Black Swan, a 140-seat "black box" venue in a space formerly occupied by a Chevrolet dealership.

If the festival box office doesn't have what you're looking for, ask your innkeeper if he or she has connections (many do), or check the theater courtyard area around dinner time, where you can usually find a few theater fans holding discreet cardboard signs and looking to make a last-minute sale or purchase.

Remember the old theory that, given enough time, a chimpanzee at a typewriter would eventually hammer out all of Shakespeare's plays? The Ashland yellow pages could pass for one of that chimp's early efforts: Romeo Inn. Marc Antony Hotel. Shrew's House (L. Shrewsbury, proprietor). Shakespeare & Co. (books). Arden Forest Inn. Ann Hathaway's Cottage. The Best Western Heritage Inn ("Do Your Midsummer Night's Dreaming With Us!"). The Ann Bole Inn. (Say it fast.)

This makes Ashland sound like a sort of theme park, which it is. But of a different stripe.

"I look at it as Disneyland for people with master's degrees," said festival regular Paul L. Knight of Fremont, Calif.

It's hard to argue with Knight about Ashland's visitors. Breakfasting at the Coolidge House, I met a college chemistry instructor from eastern Oregon who was in his second decade of Ashland visits.

Dining at the pricey Firefly restaurant, I eavesdropped as the neighboring group spoke knowledgeably about the geography of the Faroe Islands and the doings of U.S. Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).

Later I learned that a 1994 survey found 48 percent of the Ashland playgoers questioned had taken graduate courses. (The median age was 49, the median household income $75,022.) The average visitor stayed for three shows in 3.5 days. In other words, these are people serious about their theater.