Tickets for the fourth season are selling at a good clip, even though opening night is still four weeks away, says Jennifer Selden of Festival Theatre Ensemble, which produces the event each year.

"We're already selling more tickets than last year; it's going to be packed," she says.

This season will include productions of well-known Shakespeare plays The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Tragedy of King Lear, and, in keeping with tradition, one non-Shakespearean classic, That Rascal Scapin! by Moliere.

Selden says the ensemble has been overjoyed at how supportive the community has been since the festival debuted three years ago.

"The response from the community has been fabulous," she says. "We sold out most performances last year, and there were a couple of shows that were within five people [of a sellout]."

Selden says there were also a handful of shows last year that more than sold out—people bought tickets and were willing to sit on the lawn.

"This year, we've added 50 seats per night and two additional nights," she says. There will be 11 performances at Oak Meadow Park this year, with 250 seats each night.

Hotel Los Gatos will join the cast this year, in a supporting role. The hotel restaurant, Kuleto's, will offer boxed dinners on performance nights.

"People will be able to reserve the dinners through Festival Theatre Ensemble's box office," says Susan Stevens, director of sales at the hotel, "and we will put a link on our website as well."

Stevens says the menu for the dinners is not final.

In addition, the hotel will offer special packages on nights of performances, which will include a one-bedroom suite, boxed dinners for two and breakfast the next morning. As of now, Stevens says, the packages will be available on Thursday and Friday nights during the season.

Stevens says Hotel Los Gatos is happy to be one of the festival's corporate sponsors for 2005.

"We want to show that we're part of the community, and it's a viable community event," she says. "We want to help ensure that this festival stays alive in the town."

California Equipment Services, Merrill Lynch and the Los Gatos Weekly-Times are also sponsors this year.

Bruce De Les Dernier, the ensemble's founder and artistic director, says the troupe is getting a little more daring with its productions.

"We're doing a bit of a departure from the traditional staging of The Two Gentlemen of Verona," he says. "We're putting it into a modern time period of 1946. The principal characters will be members of the American occupation forces in Italy."

De Les Dernier says he thinks it will be great fun for audiences to see, and that it is making the costuming more interesting as well.

"The theme is working really, really well; we're very proud of it," he says.

De Les Dernier says That Rascal Scapin! takes place in the late 1700s to early 1800s in the colorful time of Spain's Carnivale, and King Lear will take the audience back even farther, to around 800 AD.

"So we've got three very different looks for the three shows," he says.

One actor Los Gatos residents may be interested in seeing on the stage this year is Mayor Mike Wasserman.

"I'm in The Two Gentlemen from Verona," he says. "I'm a murderer, one of the outlaws."

Wasserman says this is definitely uncharted territory for him.

"I've never been in a play in my whole life," he says. "So I asked for a limited speaking role, and Bruce was nice enough to give it to me."

Wasserman says he is enjoying the tradition that former Mayor Steve Glickman started when he appeared in one of the festival's productions last year.

"I'm excited to continue [the tradition]," he says. "I look forward to seeing other mayors up there in the future."

Two other Los Gatos residents are happy to see the Shakespeare Festival doing so well. Paul Dubois and Mary Tomasi-Dubois are largely responsible for bringing the festival to town a few years ago.

"I give Mary most of the credit. It was a goal of hers to bring it to Los Gatos for many years," Dubois says.

Dubois says he and Tomasi-Dubois used to love going to the Community Actors Theatre in Old Town before it closed many years ago. Dubois says the performances they used to see there were fabulous, including many Shakespearean productions.

"When CAT went out of business, it was a great loss for Los Gatos," he says.

Dubois says he and Tomasi-Dubois had known of the Festival Theatre Ensemble for many years and, after CAT folded, they approached De Les Dernier about what it would take to move the production to Los Gatos. Dubois says De Les Dernier loved the idea.

Tomasi-Dubois formed the Friends of Los Gatos Theatre, and the group helped make it happen.

"The Los Gatos Shakespeare Festival is the first step in getting good, live theater back to Los Gatos. It's good for the community; it's a good thing for our children to be exposed to," Dubois says.

Dubois says that the members of Friends of Los Gatos Theatre are continuously working on trying to find a way to establish a permanent, indoor theater in Los Gatos as well.

"They're working on the two main problems—venue and funding," he says.

In the meantime, the Dubois family is helping to spread the word and get the community excited about the Los Gatos Shakespeare Festival. Dubois says he is already looking ahead to next year, the festival's fifth anniversary.

"I hope to see July become 'Shakespeare Month,' with banners all over town, people in costumes, merchants getting involved, and so forth," he says. "We'll be drawing people to the town."

Dubois says he hopes the people of Los Gatos know what a gem they have in the Los Gatos Shakespeare Festival.

"We're really, really lucky to have this," he says.

The Los Gatos Shakespeare Festival runs in Oak Meadow Park from July 15 to 31. For information on shows and ticket sales, visit www.festivaltheatreensemble.org. For information on Friends of Los Gatos Theatre, call Mary Tomasi-Dubois at 408.354.8787.