Over these last three decades our metal has been tested. Time and again Penumbra, and the community who supports it, has risen to the challenge to produce artistically excellent work that does not pander to the comfort or reliability of stereotypes, even when such representations are rewarded in ticket sales, laurels, or just buzz. Folks look to Penumbra to see themselves, their grandparents, their sisters and their cousins in the way that they remember, know them to be. On our stage they see familiar traditions brought to life, rites of passage, celebrations of holidays like our annual Christmas show Black Nativity. They look to us as a beacon, a guardian, a keeper of the stories. We take this responsibility seriously. The rigor with which we approach the work and its content is unparalleled. Across the nation, folks are standing up to take notice, and they’re pointing to St. Paul.

Penumbra’s dedication to our mission, our commitment to complex representations of black culture and people, has been rewarded with the homecoming of one of our greatest playwrights. Over the next five years, Penumbra will produce each one of August Wilson’s plays in the cycle that traces black American life decade by decade from 1900 to 2000. We are honored to host this unprecedented occasion and so thrilled to offer our patrons the opportunity to witness the work of a great writer staged by the artists he regarded so highly.

Penumbra has garnered a national reputation, set forth by the playwright himself, for the definitive treatment of August Wilson’s work. This reputation has brought other organizations, led by brave, respectful artists, to us in collaborative coalition. We are excited to begin our season with one such collaboration with Round House Theater in Bethesda Maryland. Their initiative to go to the source for cultural specificity is to be lauded. Penumbra is excited to partner with an organization that, rather than speaking univocally from a place of remove, or culling our artists but not our aesthetic, seeks instead to work with us, to examine issues of contemporary racism relevant to all.

Wilson took up the mantle to create stories and characters that were worthy of the black people he knew, of the richness of the culture he saw. Like Langston Hughes before him, Wilson loved black people. Loved us enough to treat our lives with respect, loved us enough to show us in our complexity and full breadth: the good and the bad; the “crookeds and the straights,” as he put it. We’re looking forward to another season of bringing you the best art, from the best place: our hearts. Welcome.

Lou Bellamy
Founder and Artistic Director