The Pearl Theater Company, which took the old-fashioned approach of assembling a resident acting company to mount classic plays in increasingly expensive spaces in Manhattan, announced yesterday that it had filed for bankruptcy and was closing after 33 years, the New York Times reported today. The Off Broadway troupe’s demise reflected both financial pressures faced by many small performing arts organizations these days, and a series of missteps that the Pearl had made. In recent years, as the company was buffeted by rising rents, it moved from its longtime home on St. Marks Place in the East Village to New York City Center Stage II in Midtown to its current home on West 42nd Street — where executives signed a 20-year lease in 2012 on a theater that quickly proved unaffordable. The company spent most of its already-small endowment in 2012, depleting it to $28,066 from $241,354, to help with its moving and construction costs. And the costs of its new 42nd Street home were rising: the company’s most recent annual report said its minimum lease payment would be $282,825 this year, growing to $329,317 in 2020.
