Shakespeare Santa Cruz is celebrating its 27th season on the beautiful campus of the University of California Santa Cruz. It is not a huge festival, but it boasts some of the finest work done on the West Coast. This season is particularly notable because it is the first season for Artistic Director Marco Barricelli, who up until now has been a fixture up and down the coast from Ashland to San Diego as well as in top theaters throughout the United States. He is a fine, fine actor of great power and depth of understanding. He is applying that same power and understanding to give new ideas and direction to Shakespeare Santa Cruz.

For his first season Barricelli has chosen to explore traditional Shakespeare but also to bring fresh new American plays to the lovely indoor Theatre Arts Mainstage. Outdoors, in a glen of majestic redwoods, he is presenting a vital production of Romeo and Juliet, directed by Kim Rubenstein, whose productions of The American Plan at San Diego’s Old Globe and Guys and Dolls at New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre were two of my favorite productions of recent years.

Rubenstein re-imagines Romeo and Juliet as a battle between two rival gypsy clans in modern Hungary. The concept never gets in the way of the story, while adding passion and music to the oft-told tale. She is aided by several extraordinary actors: Caitlin Fitzgerald as a gawky teenage Juliet, Charles Pasternak as the beautifully spoken Romeo, Richard Farrell as the well-meaning Friar, and Saundra McClain as the Nurse.

The other production in the Glen (outdoor theater) is a very clear and successful staging of the very difficult All’s Well That Ends Well, directed by Tim Ocel. Rachel Fowler is moving, with understandable motives as Helena. Erik Hellman, a remarkable young actor from Chicago, plays Bertram. By emphasizing his youthful exuberance and yearning for adventure, Hellman is able to make Bertram sympathetic as well. Paul Vincent O’Connor is a powerful King of France, Richard Farrell a terrific Lafew, and Beth Dixon a regal Countess. John Pribyl, an Ashland veteran, is a super Lavatch, the almost unplayable clown. He is able to get the audience on his side and get big laughs even when spouting archaic jokes. Bravo.

Inside the Mainstage Theatre the audience is treated to two wildly different though modern plays. I didn’t see Lanford Wilson’s Burn This, but did catch the hilarious soufflé of scheming organists all vying to become the next court organist in Leipzig called Bach In Leipzig. The play is by Itamar Moses and has been successful at regional theaters around the country. The production is helmed by Art Manke, who also directed and won awards for his previous production of the play at South Coast Repertory. The cast, lead by the stolid Larry Paulsen and the facile Stephen Caffrey, is first rate.

All told, Marco Barricello has begun his stewardship with a splash. Shakespeare Santa Cruz runs at the University of Santa Cruz until Aug 31.