VANCOUVER - Vancouver’s Playhouse Theatre company is out of money and plans to shut down operations after a final performance Saturday night.

The announcement was made Friday afternoon by the board chair, Jeff Schultz.

He said the painful decision was made at 4 a.m. after an emergency board meeting.

He said the company had almost $1 million in debt, despite the Playhouse receiving a bailout of almost $1-million last year by city council.

“We can’t continue operations with the amount of debt we have,” Schulz said at a press conference Friday at the Playhouse theatre, which was attended by employees, actors, theatre directors and other members of Vancouver’s theatre community.

“I’m so sad and disappointed that it’s come to this,” he said.

The company will begin winding down operations Saturday, which will affect 15 full-time employees.

“I’m overwhelmed by a sense of loss,” artistic managing director Max Reimer told the crowd of about 100 people who gathered in the theatre at the corner of Hamilton and Dunsmuir.

“The Playhouse will be remembered,” said Reimer, who received a standing ovation after he spoke.

The Playhouse closure will result in a loss to the local theatre community of $2.9 million a year, which was spent on actor and director fees, set design, lighting design, props and costumes, Reimer said.

The Playhouse’s production, the goth-musical Hunchback, a co-production with Edmonton’s Catalyst Theatre, is slated to have its closing night performance Saturday.

It will be the last performance of the theatre company, which was to celebrate its 50th anniversary later this year, making it one of the oldest of Canada’s 15 large regional theatre companies.

“It’s a dreadful loss,” said Christopher Gaze, artistic director of Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival, who attended Friday’s announcement.

“It’s been a slow, long, agonizing death, really,” he added.

He credited the Playhouse for developing acting talent over the years, and being generous with helping small theatre companies by loaning out the Playhouse’s wealth of costumes, sets and handcrafted props.

Gaze recalled his own theatre company used the Playhouse rehearsal space for a nominal fee when it first began.

“We got launched through the Vancouver Playhouse,” he said.

The Playhouse has been struggling financially for years, despite periodically posting operating surpluses.

Schulz said the deficit arose in previous years from a combination of the global economic downturn and an inefficient operating model for a downtown theatre, and the extra cost of temporary production facilities while awaiting to move into a new production space.

The board made changes and was able to reduce the deficit, but was unable to erode its legacy deficit, which now exceeds $900,000, Schulz said.

Schulz thanked the city for stepping up to provide financial aid to keep the company going last year, when it was in danger of going bankrupt with more than $826,000 of debt, half of that owed to the city.

At the time, Reimer said the city helped save an important Canadian institution that helps nearly 100 small and medium theatre companies.