Minneapolis' Tony-winning Jeune Lune to close (AP)

MINNEAPOLIS - A Tony Award-winning Twin Cities theater is closing and will be sold to repay a $1 million debt.

Theatre de la Jeune Lune, which won a Tony Award in 2005 as the nation's outstanding regional playhouse, is closing at the end of July. The performance company's board voted Saturday for the closure.

Theatre de la Jeune Lune means "Theater of the New Moon."

For three decades the company often borrowed text from ancient playwrights or contemporary writers and blended it with their own words, music and imagination.

The company was founded in 1978 by Minneapolis resident Barbra Berlovitz and Parisians Dominique Serrand and Vincent Gracieux. The three studied together at the International Theater School of Jacques Lecoq in Paris. Robert Rosen, a childhood friend of Berlovitz, also joined the group.

The group split time and performances between France and the United States before settling in the Twin Cities in 1985.