Home of the world-class Oregon Shakespeare Festival, one of the largest and oldest in the country, this storybook mountain Hamlet is better known for its Hamlet than its scenery.

Sure, it's snug up against the bucolic Siskiyou Mountains in a southern Oregon landscape straight out of a painting. And it does boast burbling mineral springs, an English garden-style park and quaint Victorian cottages.

But as ground zero for Shakespeare lovers, all Ashland's a stage, and the play's the thing.

William Shakespeare

Such is the power of the Bard, in fact, that this town of only 18,000, some 300 miles from both Portland and San Francisco, drew 354,000 playgoers last year -- the highest in the nation for a nonprofit professional theater company. From February to October, they flocked here to see 762 performances at the festival's three venues, including the first Elizabethan-style outdoor theater in North America.

It only proves that being in love with Shakespeare was "in" even before there was a Shakespeare in Love. Not that the Academy Award-winning film has hurt business.

"The week after the Oscars, our sales were 16% higher than the same week last year," festival executive director Paul Nicholson says. "People suddenly see Shakespeare as a person rather than an icon."

"The film has put a spotlight on Shakespeare," agrees Libby Appel, the festival's artistic director. "Suddenly, he's a young, adorable, exciting hero."

But more important, she says, is that the stories are more accessible because the man is more accessible. Likewise, the 1996 film Romeo & Juliet, starring Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio, helped break down barriers of Shakes-fear.

Not surprisingly, Shakespeare in Love is still packing them in at the Varsity Theater on Main Street. It plays to an insider crowd that actually catches all the witty references to the Bard's life and work.

"I've seen it four times," chuckles Barry Kraft, festival actor and Shakespearean dramaturge. "There was a real sense of excitement about the film in town."

Kraft is one of the few people in the world who have appeared in every one of Shakespeare's 37 plays, an accomplishment called completing the canon.

With moviegoers like him, there's hardly a more knowledgeable audience. The town's theater community, in fact, has come by its expertise naturally. Since its founding in 1935, the festival has run through the canon three times, a unique feat in U.S. theater history.

IF YOU GO... GETTING THERE Ashland is on Interstate 5, about a four-hour drive from San Francisco or Portland, Ore. The nearest airport is the Rogue Valley International Airport-Medford in Medford, which is served by Horizon Air and United Airlines. The 25-minute taxi ride from the airport costs $16. LODGING More than 50 bed-and-breakfasts serve Ashland visitors, many within walking distance of the theaters. Expect to pay $100 to $140 a night for a double in summer high season at the best inns. Three adorable Victorian houses set in an English cottage garden make up the Winchester Country Inn (800-972-4991). Also in town is the Antique Rose Inn (888-282-6285), an 1888 Victorian out of a picture book. The Peerless Hotel (541-488-1082) offers antique-filled accommodations. For a list of B&Bs, contact Ashland B&B Network at 800-944-0329 or www.abbnet.com. DINING Some two dozen restaurants offer surprisingly sophisticated cuisine, with prices to match. Among the best are Chateaulin and Monet for French, Firefly and the Winchester Inn for international, Kat Wok for Asian, Cucina Biazzi for Italian and Quinz for Mediterranean. OREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL The festival complex contains three theaters: the outdoor 1,188-seat Elizabethan Theatre, modeled after England's 17th century Fortune Theatre; the 601-seat Angus Bowmer indoor stage; and the intimate Black Swan, which seats 138. The season runs through Oct. 31 and features four Shakespearean plays (among other classic and contemporary works): Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, Pericles and Henry IV, Part 2. Tickets cost $14-$49. Excellent backstage tours ($11) and a Shakespeare Exhibit Center ($3) add depth to the theater experience. Information: 541-482-4331 or www.orshakes.org. INFORMATION The Ashland Chamber of Commerce, 541-482-3486.

Ashland's infatuation with the Bard began when college teacher Angus Bowmer (at what is now Southern Oregon University) staged three productions of two plays, grandly calling them the first annual Oregon Shakespeare Festival. His love's labor was not lost, and today some 70 actors (including, at one time, William Hurt, Stacy Keach and Dick Cavett) perform in 11 contemporary and classic plays, at least four by Shakespeare.

The former logging town, now known as Bardway, has grown up around its leading man. The festival is the third-largest employer and generated more than $90 million in 1997.

"Shakespeare is revered here," company actress B.W. Gonzalez says. "People come to plays with scripts in their hands."

"We all have to know our stuff," she adds, referring to the "talk-backs," when a cast member meets with the audience to discuss a recently performed play.

There's no doubt about the value of Shakespeare branding in this town. Main Street is festooned with heraldic banners proclaiming his name. You can stay at the Bard's Inn or As You Like It guesthouse, have breakfast at Puck's Doughnuts, browse the Shakespeare and Company bookstore (with a staggering 300 Shakespeare titles) and get a pick-me-up from the All's Well Herb and Vitamin Shop. And the Tudor Guild Gift Shop, which plays Elizabethan music, sells a plethora of Shakespearean memorabilia: erasers that say -- what else? -- "Out, Damned Spot"; T-shirts emblazoned with "Bard to the Bone"; even a trivia game created by Kraft.

Call Ashland a literary theme park for the Masterpiece Theatre set. Or call it Stratford West.

It reminds Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) actor Christopher Luscombe of home so much that only the mountains suggest that he's not in the Bard's birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

"It's thrilling to come all this way and see another town devoted to him," he says.

Luscombe is in Ashland for the U.S. premiere of The Shakespeare Revue, a witty send-up of you-know-who that he created with fellow actor Malcolm McKee. A smash hit in London's West End, it's riding the crest of Shakespeare mania right now.

"Suddenly the world has rediscovered Shakespeare through such a witty, intelligent film," says Luscombe, who has worked with Shakespeare in Love star Joseph Fiennes at the RSC. "We're so lucky in our timing."

On the other side of the Atlantic, "Stratford is bracing itself for an increase in visitors this year," says RSC spokeswoman Kate Hunter. "There's a huge buzz about Shakespeare in the U.K. and overseas."

Fact is, good Will Shakespeare has long been a staple of festivals around the USA. Usually held in summer, they give audiences a chance to enjoy the most popular playwright in history, often in a festive outdoor setting.

"The last 20 years has seen a steady growth," says Cindy Melby Phaneuf, president of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America.

There are about 130 festivals in North America, from Alabama to Wisconsin. People often drive several hours to attend them, making a pilgrimage year after year.

Take the Utah Shakespearean Festival, held in remote Cedar City for the past 37 years. Its Adams Memorial Theatre is so similar to the venues of Shakespeare's day that PBS once filmed a documentary about him there.

Or take San Diego's Old Globe Theatre, founded modestly in 1935, which now boasts three stages, 250,000 annual theatergoers and such alumni as Christopher Reeve, John Goodman, Kelsey Grammer and Angela Bassett.

But for guaranteed star power, there's the grand Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C., where Hal Holbrook is playing in The Merchant of Venice this summer.

"We're all benefiting from Hollywood," says theater artistic director Michael Kahn.

Current Elizabethan chitchat Shakespeare, who lived to be 52, wrote 37 plays, created more than 800 characters, inspired 300 films and wrote innumerable phrases that have become imbedded in our language and culture. When you say the following, you're speaking Shakespeare: Foregone conclusion. Othello. Dead as a doornail. King Henry VI, Part II. Wear my heart upon my sleeve. Othello. What's in a name. Romeo and Juliet. It's Greek to me. Julius Caesar. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Romeo and Juliet. Brave new world. The Tempest. Primrose path. Hamlet. Sound and fury. Macbeth. Salad days. Antony and Cleopatra Wish is father to the thought. King Henry IV, Part II. Play fast and loose. King John. Tower of strength. King Richard III In a pickle. The Tempest. To make a virtue of necessity. The Two Gentleman of Verona. Slept not a wink. Cymbeline. Make short shrift. King Richard III. Cold comfort. The Taming of the Shrew. Kill with kindness. The Taming of the Shrew. A fool's paradise. Romeo and Juliet. Send packing. King Henry IV, Part I. An eyesore. The Taming of the Shrew. Devil incarnate. Titus Andronicus. Melted into thin air. The Tempest. For goodness' sake. King Henry VIII. Refuse to budge an inch. The Taming of the Shrew. Too much of a good thing. As You Like It. Seen better days. Timon of Athens

And that's not likely to end, as a slew of new films based on Will's plays open soon: A Midsummer Night's Dream, starring Calista Flockhart and Michelle Pfeiffer; Titus (as in Andronicus) with Anthony Hopkins; Alicia Silverstone in Kenneth Branagh's Love's Labour's Lost; and Ethan Hawke as Hamlet.

Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Montgomery, Alabama. Year-round. Twelve contemporary and classic plays performed this year at the fifth-largest Shakespeare festival in the world. Shakespeare selections are As You Like It, Richard III and Troilus and Cressida. Information: 800-841-4273 or www.asf.net.

Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, New York City. June 17-Sept. 5. The Taming of the Shrew performed in the open-air Delacorte Theater in Central Park as part of Shakespeare in the Park. Tickets are free. Information: 212-539-8500 or www.publictheater.org.

Old Globe Theatre, San Diego, California. July 10-Oct. 30. Six productions on three stages (one outdoors), including Cymbeline and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Information: 619-239-2255 or www.oldglobe.org.

Shakespeare & Company, Lenox, Massachusetts. May 28-Oct. 31. Nine plays performed in four theaters at Edith Wharton's bucolic turn-of-the-century estate, The Mount, and in the company's new Duffin Theatre at Lenox Memorial High School, including Love's Labour's Lost, Richard III, As You Like It and The Tempest. Information: 413-637-3353 or www.shakespeare.org.

Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California. July 6-Aug. 29. Three plays performed at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in three theaters, including a dramatic 800-seat "redwood bowl" outdoor stage. Program includes Romeo and Juliet and Two Gentlemen of Verona. Information: 831-459-2159 or www.shakespearesantacruz.org.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Chicago. Oct. 22-Dec. 5. Antony and Cleopatra inaugurates the company's $24 million home on Navy Pier, a 525-seat theater patterned after the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Information: 312-642-2273.

The Shakespeare Theatre, Washington, D.C. The Merchant of Venice starring Hal Holbrook on the main stage downtown, May 25-July 18. The Merry Wives of Windsor in free performances at the Carter Barron Amphitheatre in Rock Creek Park, beginning June 5. Information: 202-547-1122 or www.shakespearedc.org.

Utah Shakespearean Festival, Cedar City, Iowa. June 24-Oct. 16. Troilus and Cressida, A Midsummer Night's Dream, King Lear and The Compleat Works of Wllm. Shkspr (Abridged) are part of an eight-play season in three theaters, including an outdoor Elizabethan stage. Information: 800-752-9849 or www.bard .org.

Stratford Festival, Stratford, Ontario, Canada. May 4-Nov. 7. One of North America's largest classical repertory theaters presents 10 plays in three venues, including The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth and Richard II. Information: 800-567-1600 or www.stratford-festival.on.ca.

For a listing of hundreds of performances of Shakespeare's plays nationwide, try searching at www.culturefinder.com.