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HIGH POINT — There will be no “Twelfth Night” this fall for the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival.

Because of an expected cut of more than $200,000 in state support, the festival will not produce the Shakespeare comedy at High Point Theatre in September.

It marks the first year in its 34-year history the professional theater company will not produce a major Shakespeare play.

“This is a very disappointing and very sad situation,” said Pedro Silva, the festival’s managing and artistic director.

Other festival programs, including camps, seminars, classes and its annual production of “A Christmas Carol,” will continue.

Festival staff and its board of trustees have started work on a plan to reinstate its fall season in the future, Silva said.

“While we can’t do a show this fall, there is great hope that we can come back as soon as possible and hopefully even stronger than we have been,” he said.

Asked if anything would change the situation for this fall, Silva replied: “About $200,000. It would be a matter of scrambling to build the season quickly, but it could be done.”

The Senate passed a $19.7 billion budget Thursday that made cuts across virtually every government agency to fill an estimated $2.5 billion budget gap. Nonprofit agencies were particularly hard hit.

For more than a decade, the state budget has included a separate line item for the nonprofit Shakespeare Festival, averaging $215,000 a year, said Mary Regan, executive director of the North Carolina Arts Council, part of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.

Other arts groups had to apply for competitive grants ranging from $15,000 to $95,000 through the state arts resources program.

“We felt that the amount of money that it got was way out of line with other theater companies of its budget size and the quality of its programming,” Regan said.

Forced to find cuts, the department recommended eliminating festival funds and reducing other arts grants, Regan said. The festival can apply for the competitive grants, and has done so.

For the festival, losing $215,000 is significant, Silva said. It represents about 16 percent of its $1.3 million budget for the fiscal year ending June 30. Staging a fall production costs about $225,000.

Like other nonprofit arts groups, the festival has struggled in the tight economy. Because of the state cut, its budget will drop to $1.1 million for the year starting July 1. It has eliminated a full-time production manager’s job and a part-time post, and reduced hours for another part-time job, Silva said.

Regan said she was sorry to hear it won’t present a fall production.

“I’m hoping that the High Point and Guilford County community will rally in support of the festival so that it can continue providing that quality of theater,” she said.

Contact Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane at 373-5204 or dawn.kane@news-record.com