BANGOR – Ticket sales are strong. Subscription rates are higher than ever. So why did Penobscot Theatre Company threaten yesterday to close its doors by Aug. 31 if it can’t raise $250,000?

“In the last year and a half, we’ve seen our expenses moving up and our revenues moving down. It’s a collision course,” said Mark Torres, producing artistic director of the year-round theater, which also presents the Maine Shakespeare Festival in the summer. “Unless we have a strategic planning process, the collision is imminent.”

To fend off budgetary implosion, Torres announced a new “Extraordinary Friends” fund-raising campaign, the result of which, he said, will determine whether the theater that has been in Bangor for 29 years can continue to operate and legitimately call itself a professional theater.

Torres and members of the board of directors blame the economy and funding cuts from foundations as two factors crippling the growth of the theater. They also said that there has been a paucity of local giving by corporations and individuals. While a handful of local organizations make in-kind contributions, such as waiving advertising costs or hotel room fees, too few have made actual monetary donations, said organizers of the campaign.

“The Penobscot Theatre is like the quiet sister everybody forgot to invite to the dance,” said Dan McKay, a lawyer in Bangor and vice president of the theater board. “My personal fear is that the community has forgotten that to support a theater of this quality, it takes more than buying tickets.”

The theater’s annual operating budget is $650,000, a mere 36 percent of which comes from ticket sales of $9 to $25, said Torres. Subscriptions number more than 1,000, and any given show has as many as 1,700 ticket buyers. But it is still not enough, he said.

The rest of the budget, he added, comes from contributions made primarily by individuals, but also by corporations and businesses. Ideally, Torres would like to have an operating budget of $1 million, which would allow him to meet the financial standards and responsibilities of a professional theater.

Although Penobscot has only six full-time and six part-time employees, it also pays actors, designers and directors who are hired to work on each show. In recent years, the theater has employed more and more performers who are out-of-state members of Actors Equity Association, which means they must be paid according to union rules, including salaries, travel, housing and daily food expenses. Torres said he pays bottom of scale for those actors, about $350 a week. Local actors earn even less.

Either way, the downside is the cost. Add to that a drive to renovate the Opera House, consolidating the theater into one building instead of two. And the bills accumulate.

A professional theater, said Torres, is one that pays its actors reasonable and competitive wages, and presents shows with state-of-the-art equipment. The theater, he said, has struggled financially for too long.

Some may see the “Extraordinary Friends” campaign as a marketing technique parading as a call to arms, but Torres stressed Penobscot must have a professional operating budget to maintain professional standards.

“So we had to put a price tag on it,” he explained. “There is no possibility in my mind that this theater will close. There’s an absolute campaign mentality in this organization. We’re as committed as we have ever been to fulfilling our mission. I’ve been at this theater for 10 years and I’ve never been as excited about the work we’re doing.”

Torres said the board is also looking within the institution to see what it can do better to communicate more effectively with potential donors. “We’re looking in the mirror as well as out of the window,” he said.