Honoring the African American Experience
Penumbra Theatre Stages August Wilson's
20th Century Cycle

February 2 - 25, 2009

Visit this exhibit to explore the history of the African American experience throughout the past century. On display will be vivid imagery of Penumbra's productions of Wilson's work, props from these stagings, historical images from each decade, as well as information contextualizing the work. Witness the impact of Wilson's 20th Century Cycle on our understanding of history, and Penumbra's impact on the Twin Cities' theatrical landscape. This exhibit has been created in conjunction with The Givens Collection of African-American Literature at the University of Minnesota, where Penumbra's archives are housed.

The Hennepin Gallery is free and open to the public Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Unable to get to the exhibit? Read the text below!
Watch an interview with Lou Bellamy introducing the exhibit on WCCO.com.

Hennepin County Government Center
300 South Sixth Street, A Level
Minneapolis, MN 55487
map | directions

Honoring a Century of the African American Experience
Penumbra Theatre Stages August Wilson's 20th Century Cycle

 
Panel 1
The 20th Century Cycle

As no playwright before or since, August Wilson set himself the task of depicting African American life decade by decade through the 20th century. Each play is a window into American history, told by the disenfranchised, those that were all too often written out of the history books. This cycle, in large part, remembers and reanimates the transition out of slavery and its lasting effects throughout the 1900s. In the space of each decade, Wilson allows his characters to embody and vocalize the epic and the specific, the shared experiences of a people, and the nuance of individual lives. Their perspectives implicitly echo prominent and influential black leaders of their respective times, and their actions demonstrate competing views about the best way to live.

Wilson, who found muses in his friends and fellow company members at Penumbra, took up the mantle to create stories and characters that were worthy of the black people he knew and of the richness of the culture he saw. He dedicated his life to presenting authentic representations of black American life and culture for the stage. Wilson said that Penumbra's production of The Piano Lesson (1993) "would become not only my favorite staging but a model of style and eloquence that would inspire my future work." That work became a decade-by-decade depiction of the dreams, disappointments and determination of African Americans over the past hundred years. What he saw at Penumbra emboldened him to broaden his own expectations: "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." Wilson's profound project, the 20th Century Cycle, is a candid album depicting American history at its most tender, tough and triumphant.

Penumbra has made a commitment to produce each of these 10 plays in the coming years as a part of the Wilson Lab. This commitment was launched in the 2007-2008 season with the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Piano Lesson and the regional premiere of Gem of the Ocean; and continued in the 2008-2009 season with Fences, Wilson's second Pulitzer Prize winner. In conjunction with the Wilson Lab a number of other projects are taking place including the gathering of stories from Penumbra's original company members, rehearsal ethnography that is attempting to fully flesh out and record the unique Penumbra ensemble aesthetic, and youth programming and play development.

The plays of the 20th Century Cycle and the decades they represent:

• 1900s     Gem of the Ocean
• 1910s     Joe Turner's Come and Gone
• 1920s     Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
• 1930s     The Piano Lesson
• 1940s     Seven Guitars
• 1950s     Fences
• 1960s     Two Trains Running
• 1970s     Jitney
• 1980s     King Hedley II
• 1990s     Radio Golf

August Wilson grew up in the Hill district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the location where many of his future plays would be set. His childhood experiences in this predominately African American community informed his dramatic writing. Wilson's singular achievement and literary legacy is a cycle of ten plays dubbed variously "The Wilson Cycle," "The Pittsburgh Cycle," or as Penumbra is calling it, "The 20th Century Cycle." Each is set in a different decade, depicting the comedy and tragedy of the African American experience in the 20th century, "a device," Charles Whittaker wrote in Ebony, "that has enabled Wilson to explore, often in very subtle ways, the myriad and mutating forms of the legacy of slavery." Wilson's project became more than ten poetic plays. The cycle is a metronome of American culture, reflecting the buried heartbeat of an experience parallel to the mainstream. These are snapshots of life in a country that has both celebrated and scorned black people. The entire album is the story of our nation. "This cycle," notes the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's theater critic Christopher Rawson, "is unprecedented in American theater for its concept, size, and cohesion."

Wilson's involvement in theatre began in the late 1960s when he co-founded the Black Horizons Theatre in Pittsburgh. At the suggestion of renowned director Claude Purdy, a close friend, Wilson visited St. Paul in 1976. He saw Penumbra's very first production Eden, and just a few years later, in 1982, Wilson received his playwriting debut on the Penumbra stage with Black Bart and the Sacred Hills. In 1984, Penumbra recognized Wilson as the winner of its inaugural Cornerstone Competition for his play, Jitney, which made its return to the Penumbra stage in May 2000 after premiering off-Broadway on April 25, 2000. In 1984, Wilson rose to national prominence as one of the nation's premier playwrights with his triumphant Broadway smash Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Many of the plays in the 20th Century Cycle have gone on to be produced on Broadway and around the world, and have garnered him numerous awards including two Pulitzer Prizes, Tony Awards, Drama Desk Awards, and New York Drama Critic Circle Awards.

Called "one of the most important voices in the American theater today" by Mervyn Rothstein in the New York Times, August Wilson's authentic sounding characters have brought a new understanding of the black experience to audiences around the country. Wilson’s work gives audiences the opportunity to reexamine American history through characters that are epic, poignant and defiantly struggling against the institutionalized legacy of racism in this country.

 
Panel 3
1900s - Gem of the Ocean
Produced by Penumbra in 2008, Regional Premiere

The play: Gem of the Ocean begins the century-long cycle chronicling black American life. Bewildered by the collapse of the old slave regime, the first generation of black Americans recently freed from slavery are unprepared for the backlash against their newly acquired freedom. Many venture north and find themselves at Aunt Ester's door, seeking solace, advice, or a place to heal. Aunt Ester makes room in the world for those cast aside. She examines and treats wounded souls. Her wisdom is ancient, timeless, connected to the source from which black Americans had been taken. Gem of the Ocean introduces audiences to Aunt Ester, keeper of the flame.

The decade: The time of the play, 1904, was witness to a tremendous amount of strife. It had been 41 years since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, and yet Jim Crow laws perpetuated fear and segregation. Efforts to stem the tide of black migration to northern cities for industrial jobs led to a rise in lynchings, race riots, and horrific acts on the part of the Ku Klux Klan. For those blacks who were able to move north, their options for employment were few, and often consisted of low wage, menial jobs under the supervision of unscrupulous leadership. Despite the adoption of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, black voter disenfranchisement was enforced by means such as the Mississippi Plan, which required the payment of polling taxes and literacy tests. While the end of slavery had been written into law, hearts and minds were still reeling, trying to reconfigure power structures that had been in place for nearly 250 years.

The images:

Large: The fiery matriarch Aunt Ester (Marvette Knight) conveys her wisdom to young Citizen Barlow (Cedric Mays) who must reconnect with the epic African American past in order to lead future generations in the struggle for freedom. Photo credit: Ann Marsden, from the 2008 production

Small: Workers outside a glass factory. Photo credit: Lewis Wicks Hine, Library of Congress

The props:

Dress: Created by Costume Designer Mathew J. LeFebvre for Aunt Ester. The cowry shells that line the dress were used in divination practices to symbolize feminine power and as currency in West African coastal regions. Their use here indicates Aunt Ester's connecting of two continents and marks her as both matriarch and seer.

Walking Stick: Solly Two Kings, Aunt Este's romantic companion, carried this stick throughout his years of working on the Underground Railroad, marking a notch for each person he helped carry to freedom.

 
Panel 4
1910s - Joe Turner's Come and Gone
Produced by Penumbra in 1991 and 2002

The play: Set in a Pittsburgh boarding house in 1911, this play was inspired by Romare Bearden's painting Mill Hand's Lunch Bucket. Harold Loomis was modeled after the brooding, ominous figure in the center. Recently freed from bondage, Loomis has traveled north to Pittsburgh with his young daughter in tow. They are looking for his wife, estranged from him when Joe Turner arrested him for gambling. For seven years Joe Turner held Loomis hostage on his illegal plantation. The experience recreated the nightmare of slavery and Loomis lost his "song." Joe Turner's Come and Gone is the haunting tale of a community of transient people who band together to heal one man and ultimately heal one another.

The decade: Unrest and injustice followed African Americans into the second decade of the twentieth century, a period marked by migration and movement at home and abroad. Between 1915 and 1930, some 2 million African Americans would move from the south to northern industrial centers in the Great Migration, searching for work and lost family members. At the same time that these masses moved northward, 370,000 black soldiers traveled eastward into the European and Asian theaters of World War I, Black Nationalist Marcus Garvey began the Black Star shipping line to promote international black commerce, and 57 delegates from America, Africa, and elsewhere met in Paris for the Pan-African Congress, organized by political leader and philosopher W.E.B. DuBois. Movements of protest included marches in major cities, while the movement and rhythm of the blues was exemplified by musicians like Jelly Roll Morton and W.C. Handy, whose 1915 song "Joe Turner's Blues" provided the inspiration for this play’s title.

The images:

Large: Harold Loomis (John Earl Jelks) and daughter Zonia (Jasmine Gilbert) take to the road in an image that is emblematic of the Great Migration. Photo credit: Mike Paul, Act One, Too, Ltd., from the 2002 production

Small: Children in 1911 in Washington D.C. Photo credit: Harris & Ewing, Library of Congress

The props:

Book: Romare Bearden's painting Mill Hand's Lunch Bucket (1978). From the book Romare Bearden: His Life and Art by Myron Schwartzman, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1990.

 
Panel 5
1920s - Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Produced by Penumbra in 1987 and 1996

The play: The only play in the cycle that takes place outside of Pittsburgh, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom delves into the sultry and dangerous 1920s blues scene in Chicago. Ma Rainey was a renowned vocalist, famous for her deep and forthright interpretation of the blues. Though undeniably talented, she was still subject to the racism pervasive in the American music industry. Stifled by white producers, she continually defied their limits on her talent, potential and authority. When Levee, a man deeply scarred from the harassment and dismissal of his worth by white society, strays from the group to reach for a solo career, the magic of the band is broken. Levee's once golden trumpeting emerges from the pain and rage of his own personal anguish in a tragic, misguided cry for help.

The decade: In the 1920s, a decade characterized by a national passion for African American music, blues singers like Ma Rainey (Gertrude Pridgett) became famous through professional performances on the Theatre Owners Booking Association circuit (colloquially dubbed Tough On Black Artists) as well as recording contracts with major labels. Rainey's raw and gritty style would influence Bessie Smith's career as the latter went on to sell more than a million copies of one of her records and become one of the most important women in American music. Chicago, the setting for this play, became a hotbed for jazz in the 20s, as stars like Joe Oliver and Louis Armstrong settled there after leaving New Orleans. In addition to this musical explosion, African American philosophy, literature, and other artistic endeavors contributed to the widespread Negro or Harlem Renaissance, which sought to define a new black identity. And yet, despite this popularity of African American arts and thought, the KKK surged to reach its peak enrollment of 4 million members in 1925, demonstrating that racial tensions were far from resolved, and that black progress would consistently be met with resistance.

The images:

Large: Ma Rainey (Edna D. Duncan) and her band. Toledo (Marion McClinton, top left), Slowdrag (Otis Montgomery, top right), Cutler (Danny Clark, bottom left), and Levee (Terry Bellamy, bottom right). Photo credit: Sepia Queen Photography, from the 1987 production

Small: Portrait of Bessie Smith. Photo credit: Carl Van Vechten, Library of Congress

The props:

Microphone and trumpet

 
Panel 6
1930s - The Piano Lesson
Produced by Penumbra in 1993 and 2008, Pulitzer Prize-winner

The play: The piano that sits in the salon of the Charles home is very valuable. For Berniece, it holds the spirit of her grandparents, sold away in exchange for it during slavery. For her brother, Boy Willie, it holds the key to his freedom from the burden of sharecropping for a meager wage. The struggle between the siblings over the symbolic and literal value of the piano escalates into a conflict that threatens to tear the family apart. Penumbra's production of The Piano Lesson represents Wilson's work at its definitive best; the playwright himself called it his "favorite staging [and] a model of style and eloquence that would inspire my future work." A Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, The Piano Lesson is the story of a family haunted by the living legacy of American slavery.

The decade: On the labor and demographic front, brother and sister Boy Willie and Berniece represent the divided nation of the 1930s. Half of the African American population now lived in cities, while the other half lived on farms, working as sharecroppers beholden to white landlords. Neither had it easy: for the southern farmers, floods, boll weevil infestations, and dropping cotton prices led to hardship and farm foreclosures, while northern blacks now had to compete for a job pool greatly diminished by the effects of the 1929 stock market crash and Great Depression. Unemployment rates disproportionately affected African Americans, leaving twice as many blacks (approximately 50% in some cities) out of work. At the same time, glimmers of hope and pride were evident as Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics; Joe Louis became world heavyweight boxing champion; black women were for the first time being elected to state legislatures, appointed to major U.S. government positions, and winning Academy Awards; and swing music was achieving commercial success through the efforts of Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and many more.

The images:

Large: In a moment of climactic anguish, Berniece (Greta Oglesby) plays the piano for the first time in years. In so doing, she calls on the ancestors to help rid the home of ghostly disturbance and bring peace to her family. Photo credit: Ann Marsden, from the 2008 production

Small: Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Photo credit: Unknown, Library of Congress

The props:

Boots: These dusty workboots attest to the hard realities of sharecropping, and indicate Boy Willie's connection to the land and the agrarian South.

Rope: Boy Willie uses the rope to try to remove the piano from the Charles' home, but the ties that bind families to one another and to their ancestral past prove stronger than this attempted act of separation.

 
Panel 7
1940s - Seven Guitars
Produced by Penumbra in 1993 and 2003

The play: The story of Floyd "Schoolboy" Barton, a blues guitarist on the cusp of stardom, unravels in a flashback after his untimely death. We meet Floyd as he’s talking his way back into Vera's heart, a woman who has given him everything until finally she has given up. But Floyd won't be discouraged. His eye is focused on a clear light, a light that promises to bathe him in real success if he can carry his talent, his drive, and his love toward a record deal waiting for him in Chicago. Floyd's charm and enthusiasm stir up hope in everyone. As Floyd's success beckons, it is with reservation that one by one they begin to believe in the possibility of dreams coming true. Finally, in a full chorus, while mourning the loss of their friend, each of these seven souls has a song to sing, its hope tinged with the kind of sadness only a blues guitar can cry.

The decade: The exploitation of black music by white producers continued into the 1940s, and a struggle arose between the turn of the century New Orleans jazz of "King" Buddy Bolden and the Chicago electric blues popularized by Muddy Waters. Other musicians such as Nat King Cole and Charlie Parker contributed to advances in the industry, as did WERD, the first Black-owned radio station, which opened in Atlanta in 1949. While many artists of this decade remained politically neutral, actor Paul Robeson joined leaders like W.E.B. DuBois in left-leaning challenges to U.S. government policies on race and their handling of the Cold War, fueled in part by the social stresses of World War II. Despite supposed American unity in the face of a global threat, racial divisions were illuminated as black soldiers returned to violence and murder at the hands of their fellow citizens. In the midst of this tumultuous decade, Ebony magazine would sell 25,000 copies of its first issue, Jackie Robinson would break the contemporary major league baseball color line, and leaders like Mary McLeod Bethune would represent African Americans during the formation of the United Nations.

The images:

Large: Floyd "Schoolboy" Barton (David Alan Anderson) woos Vera (Tonia Jackson) with his charisma and musical talents. Photo credit: Mike Paul, Act One, Too, Ltd.; from the 2003 production Small: Charlie Parker on the saxophone. Photo credit: University of California, San Diego

The props:

Guitar and Rooster Feathers: The rooster symbolizes divination practices, the rural south, and a connection to West Indian and African traditions. When the character Hedley kills a rooster, he enacts a break with each of these symbolic meanings.

 
Panel 8
1950s - Fences
Produced by Penumbra in 1990, 1997, and 2008, Pulitzer Prize-winner

The play: Baseball makes sense to Troy Maxon; a man gets three strikes and he's out. In this most American of pastimes, Troy has found an opportunity to play by the rules and win. When his rapid rise through the Negro leagues hits the ceiling of racial prejudice, however, Troy is forced to let go of his dream of major league success. Now that his son has a chance to play college football, Troy must weigh the disappointment of his own path with the hope for his son's future. Set in 1957, Fences is the heartbreaking story of a man who by all rights should have been an American legend.

The decade: Throughout the decade of the 1950s, the American populace was caught up amidst wars of desegregation on multiple fronts: in schools, on public transportation, in restaurants, recreation areas, housing practices, and, specifically in Fences, in opportunities for employment as well as collegiate and professional sports. In 1957, while the fictional Troy Maxon fights racial discrimination in his job as a trash collector, federal troops escorted nine black students to Little Rock, Arkansas' Central High School. Their presence at the all-white school became a landmark moment, prompted in part by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education 1954 decision which declared public school segregation unconstitutional. While Civil Rights leaders like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the NAACP staged lunch counter sit-ins and bus boycotts, kidnappings and lynchings of ordinary black citizens, and bombings of Civil Rights leaders' homes attested to the violence precipitated by these changes in power structures.

The images:

Large: Rose Maxon (Elayn J. Taylor) and her son Cory (James T. Alfred) console one another after a family fight sparked by her husband Troy's (James A. Williams) infidelity, while Troy's brother Gabriel (James Craven) watches from afar. Photo credit: Ann Marsden, from the 2008 production

Small: Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine. Photo credit: Virga, Vincent, and Curators of the Library of Congress

The props:

Baseball, bat, and glove

 
Panel 9
1960s - Two Trains Running
Produced by Penumbra in 1994 and 2003

The play: It is 1969. The country is rapidly changing. The Civil Rights Movement has folks floored, reeling from its fervor and insistence. The Hill District, too, is seeing change as developers buy historic buildings with plans to tear them down to make way for new developments. They have come for Memphis' diner. He has vowed to make the city give him a fair price for his place and is willing to go through fire to get it. No one knows quite what Memphis has been through, but all soon realize that this is his most important stand. Too many times the people of the diner have been duped or shortchanged, and in the name of one man whose logic of fair trade has driven him literally to madness, this group of disenfranchised, depressed few finds the integrity on which to make a final stand.

The decade: This play, set in 1969 against the backdrop of a black power rally celebrating Malcolm X's birthday, is one of Wilson's most explicitly political works. The characters in this piece encapsulate the assertion and struggle for freedom prevalent during the 1960s and 1970s. While the Black Power Movement is the clearest example of this struggle, Wilson also explores many other important social issues of the time such as "urban renewal," women's societal agency, and the incarceration of black men. Each of Wilson's characters participates in the struggle to manifest their own personal idea of freedom by grappling with the aforementioned political issues.

From the dramaturgical essay "Politics, Particular, Participate" by Macelle Mahala

The images:

Large: Risa (Marvette Knight) and Holloway (Adolphus Ward) look on as Memphis (Terry Bellamy) celebrates his win against the Urban Development Project. Photo credit: Nate Thomas, from the 1994 production

Small: Civil Rights march on Washington D.C. Photo credit: Warren K. Leffler, Library of Congress

The props:

Ham: While Memphis fights for his diner, Hambone insists that he receive the ham that was promised him for painting a fence. Both arguments illuminate the simple justice that in trade one should be given what one is due.

Waitress uniform: Similar to the one Risa wore during her shifts at the diner.

 
Panel 10
1970s - Jitney
Produced by Penumbra in 1985 and 2000

The play: Revisiting the theme of urban renewal, Jitney is set in 1970 in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. Eager to gentrify the neighborhood, city officials threaten to level a makeshift taxi dispatch office where community members have gathered for years. As he tries to stave off the city, the owner of the cab company faces his own inner struggle. After a twenty-year stint in prison for murder, his son is returning home. Regarded as a lyrically symphonic play, Jitney tells the story of a generation recognizing its mortality while the next must face its responsibility.

The decade: Scholar David Krasner notes that during the 1970s "the civil rights movement was in decline, having achieved merely a few of its major goals. While certain aspects of society had seen integration, the economy largely had not. As a result, jitneys represent the essence of black economic life. Urban renewal, a persistent motif in Wilson's plays, is a mixed blessing; it brings jobs and housing but undermines tradition and memory." In a similar vein, the key theme of individuality vs. collective action that arises in the play was echoed in the political and media ventures of the 1970s. Black leaders representing myriad political perspectives gathered at the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana in 1972 with the goal of achieving "unity without uniformity." Moving away from strictly revolutionary tactics like those of the Black Panthers, Jesse Jackson proposed a combination of militant and pragmatic strategies to achieve racial equality in both political and commercial ventures. In contrast to these urges toward solidarity, and the historical pride espoused in the popular miniseries Roots, 'blaxploitation' films like Shaft promoted rugged individualism. In a political climate that would become increasingly conservative throughout the decade, the way forward was still unclear. Krasner, David. "Jitney, Folklore and Responsibility." The Cambridge Companion to August Wilson. Ed. Christopher Bigsby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

The images:

Large: While Turnbo (James Craven) and Becker (James A. Williams) pass their time in the Jitney cab station over a game of checkers, Booster (Lester Purry) contemplates his first moves as a man recently freed from prison, and Rena (Sonja Parks) smolders over her absent beau. Photo credit: Mike Paul, Act One, Too, Ltd., from the 2000 production

Small: Black Panther Convention, Lincoln Memorial. Photo credit: Warren K. Leffler and Thomas J. O'Halloran, Library of Congress

The props:

Checkers and Cabbie hat

 
Panel 11
1980s - King Hedley II
Produced by Penumbra in 2003

The play: It was Hedley that young Ruby chose in Seven Guitars and she named their child King. We meet King as a grown man, fighting to survive a life that seems never to look bright. King carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. At times, he even seems strapped with a curse. Yet King imagines that he is crowned instead, adorned with a halo whose meaning he does not yet know. King Hedley II is a riveting play about the past revisiting a man struggling to free himself from the grip of his family’s legacy while desperate to hold on to his loved ones.

The decade: Set amidst a deteriorating urban landscape in 1985, King Hedley II takes place during the Regan era where the "War on Drugs" incarcerated as much as one fifth of the African American male population and was dubbed by many as the "War on the Poor." As the economic prospects of surviving by acceptable social means grew slimmer and slimmer, many poor African Americans turned in great numbers to crime, violence, and drugs. The experiences of the play's title character, King, are emblematic of thousands who had been driven to desperation.

From the dramaturgical essay "At the Crossroads" by Macelle Mahala

The images:

Large: King Hedley II (Lester Purry) struggles to keep his life and his family together. Photo credit: Mike Paul, Act One Too, Ltd.; from the 2003 production

Small: Ronald Reagan. Photo credit: Official White House photograph

The props:

Plants/seeds: Amidst the chaos around and within him, Hedley works to nurture vulnerable plants to life.

 
Panel 12
1990s - Radio Golf
To be produced by Penumbra in 2009

The play: It's 1997 and Harmon Wilks wants to become the city's first black mayor. His plan to represent the Hill District, the cultural heart of black Pittsburgh, is his ticket to win the election. As he makes his run for office, the neighborhood in which he grew up begins to groan under the weight of his ambition. Struggling to forge his own path, Harmon learns that all that glitters is not gold. Ultimately, it is his own journey and rejection of the grandeur which awaits him that brings him back to the people of the Hill District.

The decade: This final decade of the 20th century was witness to multiple African American milestones, though not yet free of the racial injustices that persisted throughout the century. Tiger Woods became celebrated as an international superstar in golf, a sport which was inaccessible to blacks until 1961. And yet, incidents like the Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of police officers involved in the beating of motorist Rodney King demonstrated that racism and prejudice still lingered in America. In the same decade that James Byrd, Jr., a black resident of Jasper, Texas, was dragged to death behind a pickup truck driven by white men, black leaders in America and Africa were winning landmark elections, with Nelson Mandela becoming the first black president of South Africa, Illinois Democrat Carol Moseley Braun becoming the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, and Douglas Wilder of Virginia becoming the nation's first elected African American governor. Radio Golf’s central character and mayoral candidate Harmond Wilks had real-life parallels in these leaders, all of whom would be faced with the challenges of the century, in particular the balancing act of honoring the African American past while moving into a new and ever-changing future.

The images:

Large: Elder Joseph Barlow (Abdul Salaam El Razzac) tries to persuade Harmon Wilks (Kevyn Morrow) not to tear down Aunt Ester's house at 1839 Wylie Avenue. Photo credit: Don Ipock Photography, from the 2008 production at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, directed by Lou Bellamy, and featuring actors who will appear in Penumbra's upcoming production

Small: Tiger Woods. Photo credit: James Marvin Phelps, www.jmp-photography.net

The props:

Golf clubs

 
Panel 13
Lou Bellamy

"Over the past 32 years, Penumbra's raison d'être has been the production of artistically excellent, thought-provoking, well-appointed shows that probe the human condition with stories told from an African American perspective. The philosophy has been constantly refined and refocused. I believe that theater in the community must function as a sounding board, where comments concerning community values, aspirations, and clarifications are made lovingly - yet critically. Since its founding, Penumbra has provided Minnesotans with responsible and provocative stories that cleave to the heart of the human experience, using as its template African Americans and the living of their day-to-day lives. Penumbra's consistent adherence to this philosophy has solidified, attracted, trained, provoked, and supported a strong African American performing arts community that now leads and serves not only Minnesota but the entire nation. Whenever I see or hear glowing reports of African American drama that pays great attention to detail, cultural nuance, and ensemble production, it is with the greatest pleasure that I look down the list of participants and consistently find a Penumbran in a critical position. Indeed, the course, style, and presentation of African American drama have been indelibly shaped by individuals who call Penumbra home."
~Lou Bellamy

"It would seem unlikely that Minneapolis-St. Paul, an ethnically Nordic Midwestern metropolis far from the madding crowds and the bright lights of the Great White Way in New York, could be the nurturing ground for the Africentric cultural enterprise of Penumbra Theatre. And that after 30 continuous years of illuminating production, Lou Bellamy, its visionary founder, could emerge from the protective shadow of Penumbra to be recognized on the national theater radar screen as a distinguished luminary in the field."
~ Paul Carter Harrison

"As an artist, I have learned that the more specific you are, the more universal your message. Penumbra, by specifying the experience of African American people, creates an opportunity for us to embrace, universally, the whole community. Lou Bellamy has helped us to see the beauty, the glory, the majesty, the wealth, and the richness of who we are - not only as African Americans but as people who live in these Twin Cities and on this planet."
~ T. Mychael Rambo

 
Panel 14
Penumbra Theatre

The Penumbra Theatre was founded in 1976 by Artistic Director Lou Bellamy to create a forum for African American voices in the Twin Cities' well-respected theater community. Through its commitment to provide realistic, inspirational works that redefine the consciousness of its audience, Penumbra quickly garnered praise and a loyal following.

As Penumbra has grown, so has its impact on the community: the company reaches over 45,000 audience members each year with its programming; employs more actors, choreographers, dancers, directors, and administrators of color than all other theatres in Minnesota combined; and remains an active member of the Selby/Dale neighborhood in St. Paul and the surrounding community. By maintaining a strong physical link to the local environment, Penumbra fulfills one of its main objectives: to serve as an educator, employer and inspirational model for the community whose stories it tells.

This impact was recognized in January of 2000, when Danny Glover presented Penumbra with the Jujamcyn Award in New York City. As a recipient of the national award for the development of artistic talent, the company joins an exclusive list of top regional theaters that includes the Yale Repertory Theater and The Mark Taper Forum. Penumbra has also been named "Best Theatre for Drama" by City Pages and "One of Ten Companies that Make a Difference" by Stage Directions Magazine.

Today, Penumbra Theatre Company is Minnesota's only professional African American theatre, and is one of only three professional African American theaters in the nation to offer a full season of performances. Under Bellamy's quarter century of continuous leadership, Penumbra has stayed on the cutting edge of the national theatre scene and continues to present groundbreaking productions.

Mission and Vision:
Penumbra Theatre creates professional productions that are artistically excellent, thought provoking, relevant, and that illuminate the human condition through the prism of the African American experience. Penumbra’s goals are:

• 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.

 
Panel 15
The Givens Collection

This exhibit has been created in conjunction with The Givens Collection of African American Literature at the University of Minnesota, where Penumbra's papers are housed.

African Americans have made profound and lasting contributions to World Literature, and The Givens Collection celebrates them. Housed in Special Collections and Rare Books at the Elmer L. Andersen Library on the University of Minnesota's Minneapolis campus, The Givens Collection includes rare books, literary manuscripts, correspondence, pamphlets, photographs, playbills, magazines, audiovisual materials and the like. The collection is available for on-site perusal and research by students, faculty staff and the general public.

The Givens Collection of African American Literature began in private hands. During the early 1950s, playwright Richard Lee Hoffman began collecting books and materials by or about African Americans. In 1985, the Givens family, headed by prominent Minneapolis businessman Archie Givens, Sr., and an 11-member council of community leaders offered to purchase the collection under the auspices of the Givens Foundation. Since its beginnings, the Givens Collection has taken its place among the largest and most prestigious collections of its kind.

Collection highlights include:

• An original, first-edition copy of Phyllis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Published in 1773, it is the first book published by an African American.
• A collection of letters from Harlem Renaissance era poet Countee Cullen to his friend and confidant William Fuller Brown.
• Original hardcover editions of books published by African American authors like Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright and James Baldwin.
• Original scripts, playbills and production photographs from landmark African American stage dramas such as Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, Charles Fuller's A Soldier's Story and August Wilson's Fences.

 
Panel 16
Exhibit credits and thanks

This exhibit created with the help of the following:
Stephanie Lein Walseth, August Wilson Fellow, Penumbra Theatre
Darren Terpstra, Exhibit Design and Coordination/Project Specialist, University of Minnesota Libraries
Sarah Bellamy, Education Director, Penumbra Theatre
Ben Hanna, Education Coordinator, Penumbra Theatre
Dhana-Marie Branton, Phillips Fellow, Givens Collection, University of Minnesota Libraries
Tim Johnson, Curator, Special Collections and Rare Books, University of Minnesota Libraries
Dafina McMillan, Associate Managing Director, Penumbra Theatre
Chris Widdess, Managing Director, Penumbra Theatre
Jason Allyn-Schwerin, Technical Director, Penumbra Theatre
Tim Gross, Assistant Technical Director
Rebekah Jaeger, Production Staff, Penumbra Theatre
Julie McGarvie, Marketing Director, Penumbra Theatre
Katherine Fines, Database Administrator, Penumbra Theatre
Emily McPeck, Properties, Penumbra Theatre
Various photographers, as noted with each image