Minneapolis’ Theatre de la Jeune Lune to Close in July

Theatre de la Jeune Lune, which won a Tony Award in 2005 as the nation’s outstanding regional playhouse, will close at the end of July, and the building will be sold to pay a $1 million debt.

The company, which was founded in 1978 by Barbra Berlovitz, Dominique Serrand and Vincent Gracieux, often borrowed text from ancient playwrights or contemporary writers and blended it with their own words and music.

The company’s adaptation of Beaumarchais’ Figaro, starring Serrand, was recently seen at Berkeley Rep in California. Among its other recent productions are Fishtank, The Deception, Don Juan Giovanni, The Miser, and Tartuffe.

As part of a statement on the company’s web site, Serrand wrote: “It has been an amazing thirty years. Few theatre companies last as long. We never sought nor desired to be an institution. Our home was always intended to be a playground in which we could gather with other adventurous souls and create the unimaginable. A place in which to grow, change and evolve. The theatrical experience is an event truly of the moment — immediate, fleeting and ephemeral. Yet in the space of that moment something takes place that is transformative to the human spirit and remains indelible in our memory — the stuff that dreams are made of, the stuff we carry with us forever. We hope you will treasure well the memory of Jeune Lune. ”