TORONTO -- A Toronto theatre company could lose “a quarter of a million dollars” this year and may have to lay off staff as a result of the prolonged work-to-rule campaigns by Ontario teachers.

The executive director of the Young Peoples Theatre, located in downtown Toronto, says the company experienced an “abrupt stop” in student-attendance in December shortly after education-sector unions launched job action.

The theatre was immediately forced to cancel seven performances of its “Jungle Book” production and put an additional 22 show times on the chopping block – a move that the company says is “unprecedented.”

"The rest of our season is at risk at this point," Nancy Webster told CTV News Toronto. "That's very difficult for a charity of our size."

Young Peoples Theatre tailors its stage productions to students between the ages of five and 18, who often represent up to 70 per cent of the audience on any given day.

Webster said the labour unrest began to take its toll late last year with a majority of seats sitting empty, largely because teachers stopped participating in school field trips as part of their work-to-rule campaigns.

"In December, when we were running our show ‘Adventures of Pinocchio,’ we had an abrupt stop to all of our school bookings,” Webster said, and noted that business has not picked up since.

With a loss of 20,000 students in the audience, Webster fears the theater may have to re-evaluate up to 100 staff contracts, as it faces a financial loss in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"A crew to set up a show, ushers to put in a show when there's a performance. You lose those performances, you lose the need for those (people)," Webster said.

While the charity-run theatre currently carries an “accumulated surplus,” Webster said the money was earmarked for capital repairs as opposed to operational funds.

The theatre will run performances of “The Jungle Book” during March Break and on select weekends to try and recoup some of its costs.