How did Seattle’s ACT Theatre go from a $5 million annual budget and 60+ employees to a $1.7 million deficit and laying off most of its staff? Misha Berson writes that “a confluence of difficult circumstances and dubious internal decisions, including ACT’s 1996 move to a new facility, swelling artistic ambitions, shifts of leadership, overdependence on credit and the post-9/11 recession” conspired to sink the theatre’s fortunes.