In the wake of the death of a member of its company, the Blackbird Theatre has announced the cancellation of its upcoming production of "Othello."

The Blackbird has been producing Shakespeare works for much of the summer in the bandshell at West Park, under the umbrella name "Shakespeare West." "Othello" had planned to close out the season, but the recent death of a company member forced the cancellation of the final week of "Twelfth Night" and now the run of "Othello."

Blackbird Theatre Artistic Director Barton Bund issued this prepared statement:

"The personal tragedies we have faced this past week have rendered it impossible to go on. The death of our company member Danny Friedland, and additional personal hardships have forced us to make one of the most difficult decisions a theatre company can make. Our September production of "Othello" must be canceled.

"We want to thank everyone in the company for their hard work. I would never have seen any of this coming. Under different circumstances, I would say that the show must go on. And we've dealt with some of that this summer already. But this is a different case altogether. We are a producing organization, but our people have to come first. Our acting company has always been the most important thing, and their comfort and happiness are first and foremost. And while we might have been able to scrape things together, we did not want to put anything on the stage until we felt it was just the way we wanted it. Our integrity as artists is important too. We have never put anything in front of an audience before it was ready. We do not like to do things hastily, and we felt that trying to mount this production under these current strains would be too risky.

"We want to look ahead. We may remount the play next summer when things have had some time to settle. Meanwhile, we want to try and compensate everyone for their time, and move forward to figure out what comes next in our company's development. We are so deeply saddened by these losses. And to make time for our personal recovery, we have had to make this terrible decision. Thanks to this community for making this summer's festival one of the happiest times in our company's 13+-year history. When the company makes its return, it will be under happier circumstances. "