All the world’s a stage, and Auburn High School’s theater students are more than happy to be players.

On Monday, that is exactly what they did as the the Oregon Shakespeare Festival presented the works of the Bard in an interactive workshop where attendees performed excerpts from the famed plays.

When Auburn theater teacher Warren Kerr first found out about OSF’s School Visit Program, he was intrigued by the prospect of bringing it to Auburn. At almost 80 years old, OSF is believed to be the oldest of its kind in the United States, producing 11 plays in a 10-month season every year.

“I said I can’t take my kids down there to see them,” Kerr said, “(so) I’ll bring them up here to see a little tiny bit what it’s like.”

That was half a decade ago.

The timing this year was perfect, since Auburn’s theater department just wrapped up its fall play, “Romeo & Juliet.”

“By golly,” said Kerr, who is in his 11th year at the school, “they need to see what this is about.”

The program, which included two performances and a seminar for the students, cost $800, half of which was paid by an anonymous donor who, Kerr said, wants to ensure that schools in the Northwest get “quality Shakespearean education when they can.”

Kerr said the effect was profound.

“I’ve got some kids who couldn’t care less, engaged,” he said. “I love it.”

Auburn senior Ty Ferguson said he enjoyed seeing the Bard’s works in a different light. He was a member of the “Romeo & Juliet” cast.

“I love watching the real actors going up on stage instead of our high-school actors,” he said. “They’re so perfect.”

Ferguson said he has gotten more comfortable with Shakespearean words.

“I never really understood them, but I’ve gotten better at understanding the language because of ‘Romeo & Juliet’.”

That is the goal of the School Visit Program.

Jeremy Thompson, who performs with the program and spent the previous year with the company, said he realizes Shakespeare is “very challenging thematically in the language and the imagery that gets used.”

“But it’s not meant to be just read,” he said. “It’s meant to be seen and heard.

“If they’re just going along for the ride, just going along for the story, I think it lands a lot easier. I hope kids are getting that it’s active, alive and interesting in that way.”

Omozé Idehenre, who also performs with the School Visit Program, said that despite studying the plays in school, she did not truly get it until a grad school internship in Italy.

“I felt like I had to come into Shakespeare,” she said.

Idehenre performed in “The Comedy of Errors” and “Richard III” last year with OSF.

“I think a problem with Shakespeare a lot of times is, because the language seems archaic, the kids feel like they can’t relate,” she said. “But it’s so beautiful to watch workshops and hear the words come out of their mouths just as they are.

“You don’t have to even study Shakespeare to understand what it is.”

OSF’s School Visit Program has reached more than 2 million students in 12 states since its inception in 1971. Between October and December, actors are bringing the Bard to schools in Washington, Oregon, California and Kansas.

“It’s an education for us,” Thompson said. “We never stop learning from the kids.”