PITTSBURGH—The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is reporting that Open Stage Theatre will cease operations—hopefully only temporarily. They will be spending the next six months making strategic plans to ensure the organization has a future. As part of this planning mode the theatre will give up the its leased theatre space, which it sometimes rented out to other companies.

"Our six seasons on Smallman Street were very good for us," board president Jim Keller, told the Tribune-Review, "but the economy is extremely challenging now, and we were forced to make some very difficult decisions."

Open Stage’s artistic director, and only full-time employee, David M. Maslow, announced his resignation in tandem with the news. The Tribune-Review reports that Maslow cited long-term debt and theatre maintenance in a tough economy as reasons for the closure.

"Ironically, the decisions that we felt we have had to make, albeit with great reluctance and sadness, come at the end of a very successful season," Keller said. "Artistically, we were getting stronger, more daring and imaginative." Keller added that fund-raising had become more difficult in the current economy, and that didn’t look like it would change in the upcoming year.

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