St. Paul's Bedlam venue to close its doors

Bedlam Lowertown in St. Paul will close its doors after a final performance Nov. 1. The venue has presented nearly 1,000 music, theater and community events since opening in 2014.

Artistic Director Maren Ward said the organization never fully recovered from shouldering unexpected debt to prepare the building for opening.

That burden recently snowballed.

"Once we did start to struggle, we did have to kind of consolidate our staff and consolidate hours, and that was working for a time, but it just wasn't happening fast enough that we could grow again," she said.

Bedlam was a longtime fixture on the West Bank neighborhood in Minneapolis. Then it lost the lease to its theater there, and moved to St Paul. Ward said the Bedlam board will consider its options after closing the Lowertown venue.

Performances will continue through the end of the month and wrap up with a Day of the Dead celebration.