It is a blisteringly hot midsummer evening and one of the lead actors from The Wire is standing atop a fire escape at Croxteth fire station in Liverpool, smoke swirling around her legs, reading from Romeo and Juliet.

Sonja Sohn, who played Detective Kima Greggs in the hit US TV drama, is at the fire station as part of a two-day visit to the Reader Organisation, a charity that encourages marginalised people to enjoy reading.

Sohn's visit marks the launch of a project with the Reader and Merseyside community theatre, which is putting on performances of Shakespeare's tragedy at the fire station with actors chosen from the local community. The fire escape Sohn reads from during the auditions will be transformed into Juliet's balcony.

Croxteth, like Baltimore where The Wire is set, is synonymous with gun violence. But despite the deprivation, there is a strong sense of community spirit and pride as Jane Davis, founder of the Reader, discovered at her local library when she was an 18-year-old single mother living on benefits.

She says "books can save lives" and believes it so passionately that she has, in under 10 years, created a movement with 150 reading groups meeting weekly in hospitals, prisons, refugee centres, children's homes, libraries, YMCAs, day centres and homes for older people throughout the north-west and London.

Texts read include novels, short stories, poems, plays and works of non-fiction. Trained project workers read the texts aloud, with group members joining in as much or as little as they wish. Interruptions are encouraged and often lead to the spontaneous sharing of life experience.

Sohn has set up a similar project in Baltimore that uses episodes of The Wire as a tool to help rehabilitate at-risk young people who may have been involved in crime. ReWired for Change is "a programme of personal transformation", says Sohn. "Through looking at episodes of The Wire and discussing those choices made by the characters, the young people begin to look at the show through the lens of their own lives.

"Families are suffering and, if families are suffering, young people are bearing the brunt of it. And if young people are feeling unsafe and insecure, they can lose their footing in their own lives," she adds.

Sean Hawkins, 21, who attended ReWired's summer pilot programme told Baltimore magazine: "The programme showed me that I don't have to be out here selling crack, or that the only way out is with a basketball or a football."

So how do the issues facing young people in Baltimore compare with those in Liverpool? "I think in terms of having a lot of high-risk young people in this town, that's one characteristic you share with Baltimore," Sohn replies. "The trick is to engage young people who may feel ostracised by mainstream society." She adds: "When young people discover that someone sees them for who they are, then they can feel validated. Hopefully my coming here to Liverpool will encourage young people to get involved with the Reader organisation."

• Romeo and Juliet is at Croxteth fire station, 26-28 August. Details at thereader.org.uk