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.
SPEAKER: What we've attempted to do is rather than waiting until it gets so bad that it might actually mean the death of the entire program and so forth, we decided to be a little proactive and try to get out ahead of it. We're getting indications from foundations, and corporations, and individuals who have great confidence in our art and our ability to manage it.
But we're being challenged themselves, and we began to hear things like, we will see what's going to happen next year or we want to help you, but we can't do it on the schedule that we thought we could. So we decided to take some steps to make sure that we're healthy in the event those worst case scenarios come true.
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