Despite negotiating all weekend with representatives of Education, Sport and Culture, Finance and Economics and Policy and Resources, Jersey Opera House Ltd was unable to secure the extra funding needed to keep the theatre open.
The company is now taking legal advice to decide whether it can continue trading.
The board has not resigned and intends to keep fighting to secure the theatre’s future, but the venue’s 15 full-time and part-time staff were sent home this morning.
Unless there is an injection of cash soon, they will be made redundant.
Simon MacDonald’s children’s show, ‘Ticklish Allsorts’, due to open tomorrow, has now been cancelled, and if nothing is forthcoming from the Education Committee in the next couple of weeks, the Jersey Green Room Club will not be able to present their Easter musical, ‘Carousel’.
Nor will the Liberation Day gala be able to go ahead at the venue.
In October the theatre was advanced around £200,000 of its £412,970 budget for 2005 to cover financial commitments until the end of the year – the second time in two years that the Opera House has needed emergency funding.
However, the board says that this only staved off closure in the short term and did not solve the issue of underfunding.
