(KRON) — After five decades, the final curtain will be coming down on one of the Bay Area’s longest running theater companies. Cal Shakes sent a mass email out Thursday announcing that the beloved cornerstone of Bay Area theater had hit “an insurmountable financial impasse” and would be shutting down.
The theater company, which operates out of a picturesque outdoor amphitheater in Orinda, has been a vital element of the Bay Area theater fabric for decades. The theater company’s theater education program notably trained superstar and Oakland native, Zendaya.
Earlier this year the film star and singer donated $100K to help Cal Shakes mount its 50th anniversary production of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.” However, on Thursday, Cal Shakes Executive Director Clive Worsley announced that the company would be suspending operations, beginning layoffs and “take steps towards what will be the ultimate closure of the company.”
“We are grateful to you for everything you have done to make Cal Shakes the venerable institution it has been for the past 50 years,” Worsley wrote. “More news will come in the following weeks as the process gets underway.”
The letter included a passage from Shakespear’s “Julius Caesar,” that read:
“And whether we shall meet again I know not. Therefore our everlasting farewell take: For ever, and for ever, farewell…! If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; If not, why then, this parting was well made.”
(KRON) — After five decades, the final curtain will be coming down on one of the Bay Area’s longest running theater companies. Cal Shakes sent a mass email out Thursday announcing that the beloved cornerstone of Bay Area theater had hit “an insurmountable financial impasse” and would be shutting down. The theater company, which operates […]
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