The play’s still the thing at N.C. Shakespeare Festival � Philanthropy North Carolina

The play’s still the thing at N.C. Shakespeare Festival � Philanthropy North Carolina: NCShakes, which began in February 1977, reduced its staff from 16 full-time and part-time positions to the equivalent of five full-time positions. It cancelled its annual fall production of a Shakespeare play, which this year would have been Macbeth. And it scrubbed its 36th annual production of A Christmas Carol.

But NCShakes’ nonprofit board of trustees had no intention of shutting down the company permanently, says Pedro Silva, an actor who has worked for the company since 1977 and served as managing director since 1983.