Penumbra Theatre Company

The Penumbra Theatre was founded in 1976 by Lou Bellamy, then the Cultural Arts Director at the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Center included a 265 seat auditorium, where Bellamy began to stage plays with a specific focus on exploring the African-American experience. Funding for productions was initially through CETA (Comprehensive Employment Training Act), which was used to pay salaries to nonprofit employees.

In 1978, Bellamy was joined by an artistic team headed by Claude Purdy, who would go on to direct many of Penumbra’s plays over the next two decades, and the playwright August Wilson, invited to St. Paul by Purdy to develop material for the theater. From its inception, the theatre company has been associated with the Selby/Dale neighborhood in St. Paul. In the late 1990s, designs were drawn and funding assembled for the company to move to a new building designated as an African American cultural center located within the historic Rondo neighborhood boundaries near the Minnesota Capitol building. The center never materialized, and Penumbra has continued to produce plays at Hallie Q. Brown, as well as at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis in partnership with the Guthrie. Other national and regional theaters Penumbra has partnered with include the Kennedy Center, Kansas City Repertory Theatre and the Arizona Theatre Company. The company has also mounted traveling productions, taking plays throughout the state of Minnesota for school and general audiences.

The theatre structure, while changing somewhat over time, has primarily consisted of two "divisions": the artistic director and acting company, and administration. Administrative responsibilities are overseen by the company general manager, with reporting lines for audience services, development, technical, and production management. Both managing director and artistic director report to the board.

The artistic side of the company has been headed by Lou Bellamy since the company’s inception. Notable performers associated with Penumbra include Faye Price, Abudul Salaam El Razzac, Ernie Hudson, T. Mychael Rambo, James Craven, Jeralyn Steele, and Greta Ogelsby. In addition to Bellamy, notable directors include Marion McClintock, Sanford Moore and Dominic Taylor.

Among the best known figures identified with the theatre is playwright August Wilson, whose early play, Black Bart and the Sacred Hills was first produced by Penumbra during the 1982-83 season. Jitney!, the first play in Wilson’s cycle on African American life in the 20th century, premiered at Penumbra in 1984. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1982), Fences (1983), Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1984) and The Piano Lesson (1986) were all written while Wilson lived in St. Paul and was affiliated with the company.

As part of its mission to present “professional productions that…illuminate the human condition through the prism of the African American experience” Penumbra has developed an active education and an outreach program, consisting of several facets, including the Horace J. Bond Ambassador Fellowships; internships for high school and college students; guest lectures; student matinees and classroom study guides; summer institutes; and playwriting labs.

Louis Bellamy was born in Chicago in 1944, and moved with his mother, ElVeeda Luckett, to St. Paul in 1945. Luckett remarried in 1950 and Louis took the surname of Luckett’s husband, Maurice Bellamy. Lou Bellamy attended St. Paul Central High School, graduating in 1962. From 1962-1967, Bellamy attended Minnesota State College in Mankato, where he received a BA. Bellamy married Colleen Bellamy in 1972.

Starting in the early 1970s, Bellamy acted and directed at various theaters in the Twin Cities, including Chimera and Mixed Blood. He was hired in the mid-1970’s as a counselor and instructor in University of Minnesota’s General College, and enrolled as a Regents Scholar in the MA program in American Literature. He continued to direct University productions while working and pursuing his studies. In 1976, Bellamy was hired to administer a theatre arts-based grant at the Hallie Q. Brown Center in St. Paul: Penumbra Theatre grew out of the project. Bellamy earned his MA in 1977, the same year that he met August Wilson. Bellamy produced Wilson’s first play, Black Bart and the Sacred Hills at Penumbra in 1981.

The 1980s and 1990s established Bellamy’s reputation as an actor and director. Bellamy directed Wilson’s Jitney! in 1984 and Ma Rainy’s Black Bottom in 1987, and was one of the first interpreters of the character of Troy Maxson, the principal character in Wilson’s Fences. While serving as Artistic Director at Penumbra, Bellamy was appointed associate professor in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota in 1994, where he taught both undergraduate and graduate courses. He is recognized for revitalizing the "The African American in American Theatre: 1820 to 1960" and "Contemporary Black Theatre: 1960 to Present" courses, as well as teaching numerous theater arts courses. He was also the key advisor for the August Wilson Fellowship, which brought a paid dramaturge to Penumbra to work on play development. Bellamy retired from the University in 2011.

Under Bellamy’s artistic leadership, Penumbra Theatre has produced 23 world premieres. His production of August Wilson’s Two trains Running won an him OBIE Award for his New York directorial debut. In 2006, he was awarded a McKnight Distinguished Artists Award and an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Hamline University. He is a member of several professional organizations, including Black Theatre Network, Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and the College of Fellows of the American Theatre.

Bellamy has been active in local and regional community, serving on the Governor’s Task Force on Economic Vitality in the Arts and the City of Saint Paul Community Education Planning Committee. He has been honored locally for that service with the W. Harry Davis Foundation Award for Leadership in Afrocentric Education, the Twin Cities Mayors Public Art Award, the St. Paul Urban League Community Service Award, and the University of Minnesota’s Outstanding Service to Black Students award, among many others.

From the guide to the Penumbra Theatre Records, 1959-2013, (bulk 1980-2000), (University of Minnesota Libraries. Givens Collection of African-American Literature, Special Collections and Rare Books [scrbg])