The five-member Gainesville Theatre Alliance Repertory Company tours North Georgia in a van filled with costumes and props for five months. And they're coming to a school near you.

Jim Hammond, artistic and managing director of the alliance, said he started the traveling troupe of Brenau University and Gainesville State College theater majors in 1992.

The repertory company is part of the alliance's outreach and education program and will visit 60 schools, as well as hospitals, retirement homes and nursing homes, on its five-month run that ends in March.

"This rep company is basically a gift from Brenau and Gainesville State College," Hammond said. "Not everyone can come to us, to come to theaters to see our shows."

Hammond said the troupe tours every other year, and this year five Brenau University theater majors make up the traveling team of actors.

For a fee of $100 to $200 to cover travel and supply expenses, the troupe can turn nearly any space into a stage.

The repertory company is now performing "Wiley and the Hairy Man," a folk tale set in the Lousiana bayou, for elementary and middle school children. For high school students and adults, the group puts on the French master Molière's classic satirical comedy "The Miser."

Zechariah Pierce, a Brenau University senior theater major who is a member of and manages the Gainesville Theatre Alliance Repertory Company, said the troupe has already performed at 10 local schools since mid-October, including Fair Street International Baccalaureate World School, Enota Multiple Intelligences Academy and North Hall and Flowery Branch high schools.

"Sometimes it's (students') first experience with theater," Pierce said of the troupes' school performances. "It's our task to suck them into this magical world of theater."

Hammond said the repertory group's performances are a great experience for the actors as well as the students. He said the five actors must transform every location into a stage in a matter of minutes.

Pierce said he enjoys the challenge.

"It's kind of a guerilla theater we have. ... We really don't have a decent idea of the space we're performing in until 30 minutes before we're performing," he said. "Instead of them coming into a huge theater and getting used to the space, we're coming into their gyms and adapting to their space."

Hammond said in return for the actors' months of grueling performances, they'll be rewarded with opportunities to perform in street theater festivals in Paris, Rome and Florence in May.

Pierce said he believe it's "crucial" that children be exposed to the theater, which is best experienced not from a world of textbooks but from artists.

He said the "PG-13 jokes" of "The Miser," a story of a father dueling a pair of young lovers, might change some high school students' stiff perceptions of theater.

"It shows high schoolers that theater isn't just actors saying beautiful words. They can get down and dirty, too," Pierce said. "It's something they can relate to. These stories can be living. They're not just old stories from old books."