WHAT in the world could hip-hop and Shakespeare have in common? One is an urban culture with baggy pants and music that a lot of people outside the culture just can’t relate to. The bard, meanwhile, is all proper with his highfalutin words and centuries-old stories.

   But Keith Baker sees a connection. The artistic director at Bristol Riverside Theatre in Bristol, Pa., noticed how hip-hop has created a language with its own phrases and rhythms, just like Shakespeare did.

   ”There’s a huge common ground because Shakespeare was an inventor of words,” Mr. Baker says. “He would make up words that were never used before... that were useful for him at the moment. He, of course, wrote in blank verse but he wrote about the whole strata of society. It was work that was meant to be heard, like hip-hop is, it wasn’t meant to be read.”

   So Mr. Baker decided to bring the two forms together. “What would happen to the language,” he asks. “What would happen to (Shakespeare’s) plays? Would it illuminate anything? Could it bring us an understanding or bring us in touch with the plays in a way that hadn’t been done before?”

   Theatergoers have their chance to find out with What You Will, an “urban interpretation” of Twelfth Night at BRT through March 1. The production, conceived and co-directed by Mr. Baker and choreographer Donald Byrd, uses a contemporary setting, dance and music to share the story of Viola, a shipwrecked woman who enters a nightclub called Club 12th Night in the city of Illyria. She believes her twin brother died in the wreck and disguises herself as a boy named Cesario. This leads to a love triangle between Viola, Orsino (whom Viola starts working for) and Olivia. Viola falls for Orsino, who pines for Olivia. Olivia, meanwhile, falls in love with Viola (whom she believes is the handsome young Cesario). Typical of Shakespeare’s comedies, the play has twins, mistaken identities and romance.

   While researching how noted hip-hop theater companies have performed Shakespeare, Mr. Baker found their versions started with a particular play, but eventually went in their own direction. What You Will is different, he says, because it’s a genuine staging of Twelfth Night. Aside from a prologue, the play is completely Shakespeare’s language.

   ”That was the experiment and the exploration, to see what would happen,” Mr. Baker said, adding that he and Mr. Byrd held workshops in New York to explore the possibility.

   ”We found that it not only could work, it became exhilarating and very interesting and intriguing,” he says. “What we’ve been working on now, and what we’ve kind of come to, is a play that’s partially rapped, partially straight Shakespeare, partially spoken word, partially sung. And all those things float in and out of each other and form something quite different.”

   Bristol’s cast includes Christin S. Davis as Viola, RJ Foster as Orsino and Miriam Hyman as Olivia. During the audition process, the directors decided the show needed actors who know their Shakespeare.

   ”We found that people who were fluid in hip-hop could not do the Shakespeare, it just wouldn’t come out of their mouths right,” he says, adding that any actor of the younger generation who is fluid in Shakespeare could handle the hip-hop elements of the show because, “whether they know it or not, they have hip-hop in their DNA.”

   The show’s music was composed by Justin Ellington, who has worked on various shows for Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, and is a member of Bangladesh, a production company that has created songs for artists like Lil Wayne and Ludacris. Mr. Baker calls him a “cutting-edge hip-hop composer.” Another element is added by a hip-hop violin solo, “that’s quite beautiful, that’s really something,” he says.

   Mr. Byrd, the artistic director at Spectrum Dance Theater in Seattle, recently choreographed Broadway’s The Color Purple. Mr. Baker calls co-directing (which neither director has done before) an “experience all its own,” and one that’s going well, even though the two men didn’t know each other before collaborating.

   ”It has worked out in just the most remarkable way,” Mr. Baker says. “We’re even astonished by it, how well it’s worked out, how much alike we think and how much we respect each other’s ideas. We have not had a harsh word or a serious disagreement since we’ve been working on this.”

   Mr. Baker adds that he’s somewhat more involved in the show’s language, while Mr. Byrd is more focused on the movement, even though both directors are working on all aspects of the show.

   ”He’s a little more, by nature because he’s a choreographer, focused on the bodies and how the body is telling us what the words are saying,” Mr. Baker says.

   Several area theaters are taking on Twelfth Night this year. McCarter Theatre in Princeton will open its run March 5 and the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in Madison has the play scheduled for the holiday season. It’s a coincidence, but Mr. Baker suggests reasons why theaters are drawn to it.

   ”It’s a tremendously accessible play,” he says. “It’s light in nature, it’s very beautiful and it is a play about the uncovering of real love, I think. The play is filled with these self-loved people, obsessive people, and they learn something different at the end of the play. A deeper sense of love and a love for someone else is revealed to them.”

What You Will is at Bristol Riverside Theatre, 120 Radcliffe St., Bristol, Pa., through March 1. Performances: Wed., Sat. 8 p.m., Thurs. 8 p.m., Fri. 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. Tickets cost $29-$37; (215) 785-0100; www.brtstage.org