After taking its show out of the country, the Grand Valley State University theater group Bard to Go will wrap up this year’s Shakespeare Festival with a final community performance this weekend.

Bard to Go traveled to the Bahamas in early October to join other groups performing in the Shakespeare in Paradise festival. Now back in West Michigan, the group is giving the public a chance to see its unique style of Shakespeare.

The show starts at 1 p.m. and will be held at the Loosemore Auditorium at the Pew Campus immediately following the 2011 Shakespeare competition Battle of the Bards, which awards cash prizes for Shakespeare- or Elizabethan England-related student work.

Bard to Go performs selections from Shakespeare’s plays that center around specific themes, which are related to that year’s main stage performance. This year’s theme is “Lovestruck.”

Theater patrons familiar with Shakespeare will recognize characters and scenes from plays like “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “The Tempest,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” “The Comedy of Errors” and “Hamlet.”

Karen Libman, GVSU professor and director of “Lovestruck,” said this weekend’s performance will be the public’s only chance to see the show.

Before Bard to Go takes the stage, Battle of the Bards finalists in the Best Visual Arts and Best Performing Arts will perform or be displayed, and the audience will determine the winner.

“(Battle of the Bards) will have a wide representation of works by students varying from performances, analytical and creative writing to multiple visual arts,” said Heather Brown, sound designer for Bard to Go.

Brown said this a good event for people even if they are not very familiar with Shakespeare.

“It opens new doors to Shakespeare that some people normally would not be able to get just watching a Shakespeare performance or reading one of his plays or the many writings and research on him and his time,” Brown said.

These performances are all a part of the GVSU Shakespeare Festival, a collection of events and performances designed to raise appreciation of the writer’s work. The festival began last month and included performances of “Twelfth Night,” a greenshow and the GVSU Renaissance Festival.

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