This past weekend, A Noise Within staged its final performance at its Glendale home — a nostalgic but celebratory look back at 19 years of classical theater as the repertory company prepares to make the much-anticipated transition to a permanent, brand-new space in Pasadena next season.

At the start of “A Noise Within: A Retrospective,” ANW co-founders and artistic directors, husband-and-wife team Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott, took to the stage for a few moments of reflection, wondering aloud what would be the best way to celebrate ANW’s nearly two decades of history. True to their style of no-nonsense, text-first theater, they concluded that the plays were the thing. There were no speeches or eulogies; they focused only on the words — “the words which have bathed the walls of this wonderful old building,” as the Elliotts put it in the program.

In a cleverly staged rotation-style reading, the resident artists took turns in the spotlight reciting well-known passages and reliving old parts as they cycled through each of ANW’s past seasons. Bookended by Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and Ionesco’s “The Chairs,” the event showcased the impressive breadth of classical theater this small company has managed to cover — and cover well — over the course of its 19-year stay at this old Masonic Temple right across the street from the Americana at Brand.

The new venue in Pasadena will be about twice the size and give the company a lot more to work with artistically, but — as this evening drove home — it will always be about the words for A Noise Within. And with words this good, that’s all it ever takes.