Early last week, Brad Hills, co-founder and executive artistic director of Innovation Theatre Works, sent an email to supporters with an ominous subject line, “Don’t let Waiting for Godot be our last show!”

It was no idle threat. A promising 50 people saw the April 5 preview of “Waiting for Godot,” by Samuel Beckett, but the following three performances during its opening weekend, April 6-8, drew a total of just 39 to the 100-seat theater on Division Street in Bend.

The matinee show on Easter was a particular disappointment, Hills said, drawing an audience of just four; that’s one fewer than is in the cast.

“Granted, it was Easter and I probably shouldn’t have been doing a show … but I think there’s a lot of people who don’t even pay any attention to Easter,” he said.

In “Waiting for Godot,” Beckett’s absurdist classic, Vladimir and Estragon famously await Godot, who never arrives; Hills awaits an audience, which had better show if he’s to keep the theater running. “This has been a really bad opening weekend, and so it’s a little scary,” he told The Bulletin.

In the email, he wrote, “Unless we can average at least 50 sold tickets per show over the remaining ten performances of Waiting for Godot, we will be forced to close our doors.”

“It really could (close),” Hills told The Bulletin. “I currently don’t have rent for this month.”

“Godot” comes on the heels of another underperformer, the dark comedy “Mr. Marmalade,” which ran in March and went over budget.

“ ‘Mr. Marmalade’ just tanked, terribly,” said Hills. “Like a financial disaster.” Average audience size was 24.

A tough environment

Innovation Theatre Works is not the first area theater to face struggles in recent years. In the midst of its 30th season in 2008, Cascades Theatrical Company launched a successful $30,000 fundraising campaign to keep its doors open.

Theater operations manager Lana Shane says CTC has been able to stay in the black since the 2008 season, and just recently paid off its mortgage. Although some shows have sold out, attendance is down 3 or 4 percent from the previous two seasons. “Not a huge (drop), but there’s always room to build it.”

In late 2009, after eight seasons, Bend’s 2nd Street Theater announced it would be closing due to its own financial woes. However, the theater kept its doors open for other theater groups to rent, among them Bend Experimental Art Theatre. The nonprofit educational theater for young actors also puts on musical productions using stages at area high schools; “Annie Get Your Gun” ran earlier this month at Bend High School and drew a total 2,000.

According to Howard Schor, co-founder and executive director of BEAT, personal contact and word of mouth are the primary ways that BEAT is able to spread the word and draw large audiences to its offerings. For its smaller productions, including the currently running “And a Child Shall Lead,” BEAT uses more intimate spaces at 2nd Street Theater and CTC’s Greenwood Playhouse.

Sandy Klein and her husband, Greg Thoma, son of 2nd Street cofounder Maralyn Thoma, formed a nonprofit, Stage Right Productions, to stage shows at 2nd Street Theater.

In January, Klein and company presented the rock musical “The Who’s Tommy.” Next up, in May, is Del Shores’ comedy “Sordid Lives.”

“We’ve got things on the books through the end of 2014 right now,” Klein said. “ ‘Tommy’ turned out really well. We made a couple of dollars, and we ended up selling out most of the shows toward the end.”

However, the turnout was less strong during the recent run of comedy “Gina Galdi and Guest,” written and produced by Bend playwright Cricket Daniel; Klein suggests that’s partly due to its lengthy four-week run, from Feb. 17 to March 17. “So the audiences were spread kind of thin,” Klein said.

“It’s tough to get an audience. That’s the challenge,” she added. “We’ve been seeing more new actors, singers and new crew people, but it’s the audience that’s the challenging part.”

Why? “I think the economy has a lot to do with it. And I don’t think people are used to having so many choices in theater. It’s tough when you’ve got three plays going on at the same time, and it’s 20 bucks a ticket. You’ve got to pick and choose which ones you want to go see, I guess.”

Finding the right balance

At Innovation, people wanted to see the Christmas production of David Sedaris’ “The Santaland Diaries.” While it was a hit, the play was staged in the theater’s smaller lobby area, which seats 40 and means lower potential ticket sales overall. This winter’s “Angels of Lemnos” also did well, but was also staged in the smaller space.

“I haven’t really been able to figure out what mechanisms drive Bend audience attendance,” Hills said. “The general rule is musicals should do well. Comedies should then do the next best, and then things like murder mysteries, whodunnits, that kind of thing, will then do next. Dramas are going to be tough sells. Classics are tough sells as well.

“So the thing about ‘Godot’ — I don’t know if people are afraid of it because they think one thing about it, and what they don’t honestly know is that it’s in fact really funny. And our production is quite hilarious.”

Cat Call Productions has consistently sold out the Tower Theatre, where the Bend company has been staging one annual musical each fall since 2009, including “Cabaret” and “Chicago.” (Cat Call has planned Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” for Sept. 14-22.)

But as theaters offering full seasons, Cascades Theatrical Company and Innovation have a slightly different challenge in selecting their productions, according to CTC operations manager Lana Shane.

“It’s hard to get that balance and still give the theater audience in Bend a really good idea of what theater’s like,” she said. “You want to give a great variety of challenging plays as well as (popular) things. … You try to give a full cosmopolitan theater experience to Bend, because Bend is such an impressive place culturally, for a town this size.”

CTC attempts to present a challenging play or two per season, she said.

“And it’s always hard, because you get a different group that like the dark comedies and the absurdist and the challenging, and they’re up for every theatrical experience. And you have another portion of the population that’s like, ‘No, we’d be fine seeing “Oklahoma” every year.’”

Feeling optimistic

“Godot” runs through April 22, and Hills is optimistic that the theater’s fortunes could turn around during the rest of its run. He received warm responses to his email, and the third week of its run could be the charm.

“The third week is the best week, and it has been for all of my shows. I think if you ask any theater in town, they’ll tell you the same thing,” he said.

Hills said he decided to cancel the next lobby presentation, which was to be “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You.”

“I thought it’d be better for me to concentrate on getting people into ‘Godot’ and the next show on the main stage.”

That’s “She Loves Me” in June, Hills said, “which is a fabulous musical that should do well for us.”

If you go

What: “Waiting for Godot”

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays through April 21; 2 p.m. Sundays through April 22.

Where: Innovation Theatre Works, 1155 S.W. Division St., Bend

Cost: $20, $18 students and seniors

Contact: www.innovationtw.org or 541-504-6721