August 3, 2009 - MPR’s Euan Kerr speaks with Penumbra Artistic Director Lou Bellamy about Claude Purdy, a founding member of the Penumbra Theater in St. Paul. Bellamy says Purdy offered many strengths to the stage.
July 1, 2009 - MPR’s Euan Kerr talks with Garrison Keillor, who reflects on the early days of A Prairie Home Companion.
June 23, 2009 - Over the next year Twin Cities Theaters will present three plays by David Henry Hwang, perhaps best known for his show "M Butterfly." Euan Kerr reports the first work will give audiences a new look at the Asian American experience.
May 25, 2009 - Heather McElhatton will tell you she knows a thing or two about dating. She's spent enough time using on-line dating services to know what the terms men use to describe themselves in their profiles REALLY mean.
May 20, 2009 - Nico Muhly isn't 30 yet, but the protege of Phillip Glass is already recognized as a major force in contemporary classical music. The Juilliard graduate has composed for, among others, the Boston Pops, Chicago Symphony, and Bjork. Muhly sees himself and his music as a product of the internet age.
April 3, 2009 - Four years ago Canadian novelist Joseph Boyden burst onto the literary scene with "Three Day Road," a tale of two Canadian Cree Indians who volunteer as snipers during World War One. Boyden is all about dichotomies. He is part Ojibwe and part Scots-Irish. He splits his time between New Orleans where he teaches and James Bay in Northern Ontario where he fishes and hunts on the reservation. His new novel "Through Black Spruce" has two narrators. The first is Will Bird, a hard drinking former bush pilot who is in a coma on a Cree reservation. The second is his niece Annie. She also lives on the reservation, but leaves to work as a model, while trying to find her sister who has disappeared. The book just won Canada's top literary award, the Giller prize. Boyden told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr he chose the characters because he wanted to write about the extremes of modern native life.
February 13, 2009 - The Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul announced it is trimming its budget by almost a quarter and pushing a major production into next year.
February 13, 2009 - In what it calls a proactive move, St Paul's Penumbra Theatre has trimmed it's 3.8-million-dollar budget by almost a quarter.
February 12, 2009 - The Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, the largest professional African American theater in the country, announced its trimming budget by almost a quarter and pushing a major production into next year as a result of the economic downturn. Penumbra recently completed a three-million-dollar fundraising campaign. Artistic director Lou Bellamy says the cuts are preventative measures to protect what the company has built in recent years.
February 12, 2009 - Interview excerpt with Penumbra Theatre’s Lou Bellamy on the organization’s budget cuts and plan to postpone its final production of the current season until the 2009-2010 season, while preserving its important programs.