Kids killing kids in the street, ignoring authority figures, breaking curfews, and having sex despite the best efforts of their parents. That in a nutshell is what the youth-and-communication-oriented troupe Theater Quest was designed to combat after the L.A. riots in 1992. And that’s also what the company will be serving up in a transcontinentally diverse Romeo and Juliet (half Californian, half Washingtonian) this week at the KenCen Opera House. For the last eight weeks, more than a hundred volunteers, from seasoned stagehands to street kids who’d never set foot in a theater before, have been exploring how much the modern-day Montagues and Capulets of Pasadena and D.C. have in common with their 16th-century forbears. The payoff begins tonight, when they perform Shakespeare’s tale of star-crossed lovers with the company’s trademark physicality. Tickets are a mere $10, the lowest entry fee anyone’s likely to see for the Opera House any time soon, with proceeds keeping this salutary project afloat in a season of arts cutbacks. At 7 p.m. tonight through August 26 at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House. $10. (202) 467-4600. (Bob Mondello)