After hundreds of years of performances and interpretation, English and theater students will tell you Shakespeare speaks to every generation.

The multi-generational cast of this weekend’s Searching for Shakespeare performances demonstrates this while they wrestle with the classic themes of love and hate.

“Here’s how you tell the difference between the comedies and the tragedies: in the comedies, all the characters end up married. In the tragedies, they all end up dead.”

That’s a line from the “Shakespeare in a Nutshell” parody, co-written by Ames High School students Lauren Vidimos and Madeline Paschen.

Searching for Shakespeare is a community theater organization for all ages. This weekend, the group will put on 11 one-act plays in Thomas Evans Park, as well as three performances of “Twelfth Night” at the Octagon Center for the Arts.

The one-act plays consist of Shakespeare excerpts and parodies such as the one written by Vidimos and Paschen. The theme for this year’s production is “Shakespeare: Love and Hate for Dummies.”

“We start out with Helena and Hermia from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ and it’s just love triangles galore,” said Anne Wiltgen, graduate student in political science.

Wiltgen is co-producing this weekend’s events with Wells Fargo employee James Philipps and Ames High School secretary Sandy Loucks.

The fighting Beatrice and Benedick of “Much Ado About Nothing” and the tragic couple of Othello and Desdemona bring some tension and darkness into the mix.

Wiltgen has been involved in Searching for Shakespeare since she was a freshman at Iowa State.

“The idea of a bunch of people getting together and saying ‘Let’s do some Shakespeare’ – that was just really appealing,” Wiltgen said. “It’s the way it ought to be.”

It might be a bit surprising to see young children, high school and college students perform Shakespeare together, but Wiltgen said that’s the magic of the show.

Jenna Hutzel, sophomore in liberal arts at Des Moines Area Community College and director of one of this weekend’s plays, agreed.

“A lot of people see the younger kids and say ‘They’re doing Shakespeare?'” Hutzel said.

Aside from showing off the children’s talents to the community, Hutzel said this is an opportunity that will help them tremendously with any future acting.

“If you can do Shakespeare acting, you can do any acting,” Hutzel said.

However, improving everyone’s acting ability isn’t the only good thing about Searching for Shakespeare, Paschen said.

“We really like Shakespeare, but we’re not uptight about it,” Paschen said.

This weekend’s production will affirm that, with a one-act called “Shakespeare Baseball,” a baseball comedy with Shakespearean lines inserted. Think along the lines of “Outs, outs, damn spot!”