Lou Bellamy, Penumbra's artistic director, says his theater has outgrown its current home in the Hallie Q. Brown/Martin Luther King Center and is looking to be a part of African American arts complex in St. Paul.
St. Paul's Selby Avenue is undergoing something of a renaissance. Once considered one of the more unsavory parts of the capital, the area is now home to upscale restaurants, a wine bar; even a co-op is under construction. Community members hope the next development will be the 20-million-dollar African American arts complex. Backers are seeking eight million in state bonds from the legislature. The proposed facility would include three theatres, a dance studio, a lecture hall, classrooms and a cafe. The main tenants would be the Walker-West Music Academy, and the African American theater company Penumbra.
Transcripts
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SPEAKER 1: Next season, three of our five main stage shows won't be in our theater because we have to move out to accommodate larger audiences. We just finished a fabulous two-week run with our production of Fences at the Guthrie where we pulled to almost 20,000 people in two weeks. So it is the art has grown to the point where we need to support it in a, I think in as informed a context as we possibly can.
Now this then gives us the opportunity to expand all the education and reach everybody in the state as well as the nation. I'm looking at this almost as a Mayo Clinic of African-American art and education. It could be something really neat.
SPEAKER 2: You've made claims that this is not only important for Selby Dale and the city of Saint Paul, but it will also have a national presence. How?
SPEAKER 1: Well, I think national as well as international. What we're doing and the issues and the art that Penumbra creates has already far, far reaching ramifications. And we are recognized as a leader in African-American theater art. We want to be recognized as a leader in providing the context in which that art is created. We want to be able to focus national discourse by commissioning plays and bringing the very, very best in the world to come to Saint Paul and create their art in a culturally specific and informed context, the like of which does not exist right now.
SPEAKER 2: What would you say if some lawmakers came up to you and said, Lou, I like the idea. I like it. Things are tough this year. How about if we wait a year or two and then take a really serious look at it then?
SPEAKER 1: Well, there are lawmakers who have suggested that in our conversations with them. They've been wonderful at the Capitol about hearing our issues and looking at it honestly and so forth. And I appreciate that. But I would say to them as I have said that I've heard that before.
And I come from a community indeed from a culture that never is on anybody's list or if it is, it's late coming. And I expect that sort of reaction. And I would argue that this is a case that they need to hear and look at in an honest way.
I mean, Saint Paul is a fabulous city. It is a city that has a Premier African-American arts theater in its midst. And it's one that by some peoples view would be illogical. This is a community that saw the worth of a Penumbra and therefore introduced a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner in August Wilson to the nation that would not have happened if they wouldn't have taken that chance. When I go to different parts of the world, I mean, that we have a theater of this quality and this direction in the city of Saint Paul, they're just amazed by it. But we come from a city that is intelligent and informed and gave us the support to let us either succeed or fail on the basis of our own self and our own ability, and you just don't find that anywhere.