Lookingglass Theatre, long in residence at the Water Tower Water Works on Michigan Avenue, said Friday that it planned to reduce its full-time staff from 24 to 10 employees and to pause programming until late spring of 2024.

The ensemble-driven theater, founded by a close-knit group of Northwestern University classmates and friends in 1988, famously has produced original work for the last 35 years, typically with a strong visual sensibility. It long has been central to Chicago’s famed world-class theater scene, winning the 2011 Tony Award for excellence in regional theater.

Notable world premieres from ensemble members at Lookingglass over the years have included Mary Zimmerman’s “Metamorphoses” (which transferred to Broadway and won a Tony Award), “The Arabian Nights,” and “The Odyssey”; David Schwimmer’s adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” and Studs Terkel’s “Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel about the American Obsession”; and David Catlin’s “Lookingglass Alice,” a hugely successful circus-infused adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland” and an oft-revived show that has offered some sustenance for the company.

But despite operating in rent-free digs at the City of Chicago-owned Water Tower at the heart of Chicago’s heavily trafficked Magnificent Mile, Lookingglass has seen audiences drop away in recent months, artistic director Heidi Stillman said. “None of our recent shows have hit our box-office goals, Stillman said, “even after we have reduced our goals.”

Stillman said that surveys had revealed some audience members were reluctant to come downtown in recent seasons and that the theater, which stayed closed longer than most during the pandemic, has been seeing a drop-off in subscription and single-ticket sales similar to that experienced by other non-profit theaters across the country.

In Chicago alone, closed or moribund theaters include Victory Gardens Theater, House Theatre of Chicago, Sideshow Theatre Company, BoHo, Eclipse Theatre Company and Underscore Theatre Company. Other large companies have greatly reduced programming as audiences have not shown up in numbers that once could be expected.

Lookingglass, which recently hosted a fundraiser led by Stephen Colbert, a longtime supporter, plans to use a previously obtained construction grant from the State of Illinois to improve its Michigan Avenue space (in concert with the Chicago Public Library) while its productions are on hold. The current show, a critical success called “Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon,” is slated to run through July 16. In addition, educational programming, most of which is grant funded, will continue.

In a letter that was scheduled to be sent to supporters Friday, Lookingglass, which once had an annual budget of about $6 million, announced an urgent campaign with the fundraising goal of raising $2.5 million to fortify what would appear to be a smaller theater company, going forward.

“We are determined to figure out how the heck this can work in this new climate,” Stillman told the Tribune, saying the responsibility to younger company recruits weighed heavily on her mind. “Our mission isn’t tied to the scale of our organization,” she said. “We want to figure out how it goes forward. This is our lives’ work.”

“It is a hard moment, but we believe in impossible things,” the Lookingglass letter says.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

[email protected]