Shakespeare on Wheels is going up on blocks for the summer while the 10-year-old troupe tries to tune its financial engine.
The University of Maryland Baltimore County has announced its roving players will not be taking the Bard to dozens of outdoor sites across Maryland this year. Instead, the troupe will be on hiatus to pursue funding for operation next year and into the future.
"It was an extremely difficult decision . . . but I try to look at it in an optimistic way," said William T. Brown, former chair of the UMBC Theatre Department and founder and producer of Shakespeare on Wheels.
A company of 25 to 30 people will be idled by the decision, he said, including students and non-students who earn $1,000 for the July-to-October season.
That means that audiences at almost 30 locations, including a handful in southern Pennsylvania, Washington, Northern Virginia and West Virginia, will not see free productions by Shakespeare on Wheels.
Despite an unusual fund-raising attempt last season, in which patrons were asked to pay $50 to $150 to "adopt" characters of "Hamlet," Mr. Brown said it became clear in December that funding was not sufficient for production this year.
The Adopt-A-Character program raised about $4,200, against a projected $160,000 budget. Counting all resources, including university contributions and revenue from fees and grants, Mr. Brown said the company would have to raise another $40,000 to assure production next year.
"UMBC has consistently supported and nurtured the program for 10 years, but we can no longer afford to go it alone and still keep pace with the increasing costs," said Jo Ann Argersinger, the campus provost.
The university budgets about $25,000 annually to the troupe, but has routinely contributed above that level, sometimes as much as double, a spokesman said.
"We're going to miss this fine program," said Elizabeth Lay, executive director of the City of Gaithersburg Council of the Arts.
"It made it [Shakespeare's work] so approachable. Families could come together, and kids who couldn't sit through a production like this in a theater could watch awhile, then get up and go off and not disturb things," she said.
Mr. Brown said the troupe notified sponsor sites last fall that it was raising its fees for 1995, from $2,000 to $2,500 (for two productions) for Maryland sites and from $2,000 to $4,000 for out-of-state venues.
"Only two in-state organizations said they couldn't afford that, but all of the out-of-state said they could not pay," he said.
Fund-raising for the 1996 season will fall under the responsibility of a new UMBC official, Thomas Moore, director of arts management, who will develop funding for three campus arts organizations. They include Shakespeare on Wheels, the Maryland Stage Company, which does one theatrical production a year, and the Phoenix Dance Company.