Just a week before it was to revive its smash staging of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the Nashville professional theater troupe People's Branch Theatre has closed its doors, ending an impressive 10-year run of progressive contemporary drama and original productions.
In a joint letter issued this afternoon, PBT artistic director Ross Brooks and board president Joseph Lutche cited a combination of "fortunate and unfortunate circumstances." These include diminished support from sponsors and patrons, the economic aftereffects of last month's flood, and unnamed "scheduling and administrative issues" that thwarted the remounting of Hedwig, the scheduled last show of PBT's 10th season.
On a less gloomy note, the letter also cited artistic director Brooks' impending parenthood, along with that of several members of the theater company's board.
The decision comes of the heels of a typically eclectic season that saw PBT tackle Bertolt Brecht's drama of ideas Galileo as well as the 10x10x2 fest of 10-minute plays by local authors and Straight Outta Hannibal!, an original rock musical by Brooks, Brooks Bryant and NaTasha O'Brien about Mark Twain.
In 2005, the Scene named People's Branch Nashville's best theater group. "This theater company has broken significant new ground where Nashville theater is concerned," Scene theater critic Martin Brady wrote.
After the jump: the text of the announcement.
