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Mission Statement

Penumbra’s goals are (from their website):

• To increase public awareness of the significant contributions of African Americans in creating a diversified American theatrical tradition.

• To encourage and facilitate a culturally diverse and all-inclusive America by using theatre to teach, criticize, comment and model.

• To use theatre to create an American mythology that includes African Americans and other peoples of color in every thread of the fabric of our society.

• To continue to maintain and stabilize a black performing arts community.

Notable Company Members

August Wilson at the Penumbra

The Penumbra Theater company worked with Playwright and Poet August Wilson early in his career, helping the writer transition from poet to playwright. August Wilson’s first play, Black Bart and the Sacred Hills (1977), and later Jitney! (1982) premiered at the Penumbra Theater. His work is still regularly played on the Penumbra stage.

“We are what we imagine ourselves to be, and we can only imagine what we know to be possible. The founding of Penumbra Theatre enlarged that possibility. And its corresponding success provokes the community to a higher expectation of itself. I became a playwright because I saw where my chosen profession was being sanctioned by a group of black men and women who were willing to invest their lives and their talent in assuming a responsibility for our presence in the world and the conduct of our industry as black Americans.”

- August Wilson, Written to commemorate the 20th anniversary of The Penumbra Theatre Company in 1996

Lou Bellamy

Bellamy founded the Penumbra theater in 1976, and will stand as the artistic director of the company until 2017, when the position will be filled by his daughter, Sarah Bellamy. He has served as the Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance for over 30 years. Lou Bellamy is largely credited for the artistic success of the Penumbra theater, as he is responsible for hiring and gestating some of the theater’s more notorious artists (Including writer August Wilson and director Claude Purdy). In May of 2001, Lou Bellamy won an Obie award for his directorial contribution to August Wilson’s Two Trains Running.

Outreach Initiatives

In addition to theatrical performances, the Penumbra Theater also runs public events, dialogues, workshops and a variety of other events aimed at social awareness. Programs include workshops on race, a summer institute for teenagers, and performances and internships for students.

The African-American Theater History Project

The African American Theater History Project (also known as Umbra Search), In a partnership between the Penumbra Theater Company and The University of Minnesota with financial support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, addresses the lack of access to primary documentation regarding the history and culture of African American theater. The project’s aim is to collaborate with other African American theater companies to collect, catalog and archive important historical documents, and make this information publicly available in an online catalog to promote awareness and education regarding the history of African American theater.