BALTIMORE (AP) — The Baltimore Shakespeare Festival is shutting down after 17 years.

Peter Toran, the president of the festival’s board of directors, said Wednesday that the board tried to make cuts in various areas to avoid closing.

The small troupe pursued an expensive theatrical form with an annual budget of about $150,000. It produced shows inside St. Mary’s Outreach Center in Roland Park over the winter, and took them outside to the Evergreen House meadows in the summer.

The group could have saved money by dropping its contract with Actors Equity, but that would have meant losing access to top actors, directors and designers in the region.

The closure leaves the city with just two professional stage companies, Center Stage and Everyman Theatre.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)