Lou Bellamy: MSU alum and founder of Penumbra Theatre

MANKATO —

Ted Paul didn’t ask Lou Bellamy to act in his production of “Finian’s Rainbow.” He told him he was going to be in it.

Bellamy had come to Mankato State College in the 1960s to run track because it was far enough away from his hometown of St. Paul to feel the freedom of adulthood but close enough to drive home if loneliness crept in.

With just a few thousand students enrolled at MSU, “Doc Paul,” as they called him, didn’t have as many students to choose from when casting his productions, and he certainly didn’t have many minority students when the scripts called for them.

This was, after all, a time when Mankato students were traveling to the South to help black people register to vote, said Kitty Hughes, who was a theater student at the time. And the small population of blacks in the North still didn’t feel comfortable eating and socializing where whites did.

So Paul had to recruit Bellamy to play the college-educated butler of a racist Southern senator, a performance which Hughes described as “just marvelous.”

“A black student in Mankato at the time was hard to find,” Bellamy said. “There were only four or five of us there. ... (Paul) didn’t want to do black face, so he came up to the dorm and said, ‘You’re in a play, and you’re in a play, and you’re in a play.’”

Until then, Bellamy had no background in the arts. As the longtime technical director and lighting designer Fred Bock put it, “Lou had no interest in theater until Ted went and dragged him out of the dorms.”

But “Finian’s Rainbow,” set in the modest theater at Old Main, proved to be the beginning to a career that would bring Bellamy national recognition for his contributions in theater. And he credits his time in Mankato for igniting that fire.

“I began to see that the plays I was primarily cast in by Ted Paul were plays that had a social sort of message,” Bellamy said. “I began to see that theater could be a very, very powerful tool in speaking out. ...

“It’s become my citizenship. It’s become the way in which I comment on the world.”

Founding Penumbra

Bellamy graduated from Mankato State College in 1967 with a double major in psychology and sociology. The arts, he said, weren’t considered a viable avenue for employment at the time. But his passion for theater, coupled with a natural acting talent, kept him involved in productions in Twin Cities theaters after graduation, even while doing odd jobs on the side.

After working as a counselor at the University of Minnesota, where he also earned his master’s, Bellamy made a living as a professional actor doing commercials and voice-over work. He was acting and directing a number of plays by 1976, when the Hallie Q. Brown/Martin Luther King Community Center in St. Paul secured a theater grant for $175,000.

Bellamy was hired to administer the grant, out of which came Penumbra Theatre Company -- an African-American theater, which Bellamy founded and for which he is artistic director.

“I knew that I wanted to tell stories that were not being told with consistency on Twin Cities stages,” he said. “We were doing these plays that were including a population that weren’t included in area productions.”

Penumbra opened with “Eden,” Steve Carter’s play about intra-racial conflicts between immigrants from the Caribbean and the African-American population in the 1920s. Bellamy played the lead.

“It was a good way to let our presence be known,” he said.

Early on, Bellamy had a clear vision for Penumbra.

“I set out to try to offer a complicated depiction of African Americans. The roles I was typically playing at that time were roles that were rather one-dimensional. The characters were portrayed in front of a predominately white background. They sort of were dropped from the sky, with no community behind them, no complexity.”

At his disposal, Bellamy had a large pool of seasoned professional actors that he had been immersed in for years. So the quality of Penumbra Theatre’s productions was immediately high.

“I think that the work we were doing was of a caliber that one could call professional,” he said. “Building an audience was a different story.”

For years Bellamy and his team learned about savvy marketing practices, made sure to do shows that were appropriate for the time, and learned to put together a well-balanced season. Out of that combination grew a dedicated audience, as well as a steady-growing recognition in the theater community.

That recognition was earned over time. Initially, there were theater organizations that didn’t appreciate Penumbra calling itself “professional.” Even the state arts board initially denied funding because it viewed Penumbra as a social service agency, not an arts organization, Bellamy said.

Bock, now retired from MSU, said Paul was proud of Bellamy and would drive up to the Penumbra to see productions over the years. He was also a modest financial contributor to the theater. The two maintained a relationship until Paul’s death in 2008.

“It’s a pleasure to see your students do good things and have an influence on people,” Bock said. “Lou is a very gifted person. He has a vision. And he has the talents to back up the vision.”

A career of highlights

During the past 35 years, Bellamy has numerous moments he’s proud of, including producing 23 world premiere productions -- among them, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson’s first production, as well as many after. He’s an Off-Broadway Theater Award-winning director. In 2000, actor Danny Glover presented Penumbra with the Jujamcyn Theater Award in New York City, which recognizes the development of artistic talent.

Penumbra employs more actors, choreographers, dancers, directors and administrators of color than all other theaters in Minnesota combined. And it is one of only three professional African-American theaters nationwide to offer a full season of shows.

For these reasons and more, Penumbra and Bellamy recently were featured on NBC’s primetime magazine show “Rock Center with Brian Williams” after the original play “I Wish You Love,” staged at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., caught the attention of NBC.

“It’s really, really wonderful when people call attention to your work and say that it’s good. I’m for that,” he said. “It allows us to have that national recognition.”

And with that recognition, he said, comes sponsorships and funding from national foundations and corporations that allow for “bigger, better, more in-depth kind of work.”

But in theater, there’s rarely time to reflect on such things.

“The thing is, in theater, the one you’re working on now tends to be the one you’re most in love with,” he said.

Bellamy recently returned to Minnesota after directing August Wilson’s “Radio Golf” at Indiana Repertory Theatre, which he will remount at the Cleveland Play House. He’s also looking forward to “Amen Corner” at the Guthrie, where he’s acted in and directed numerous productions.

“Amen Corner,” which opens May 5, follows Sister Margaret Alexander, who is pastor of her church and has devoted her life to serving God. But when her son reunites with her estranged husband, she becomes torn. The production features live gospel music by Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church.

Almost four decades in, Bellamy’s vision for Penumbra hasn’t changed much. The scope of the work has grown and evolved, as has the audience, with about 40,000 people taking in shows each year.

But the vision remains.

“I think that still the black body on stage can be a transgressive act,” he said. “But I think that the stories have shifted.”

For example, Penumbra embarked on the first national tour of a Native American play, “Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers,” written by Bill Yellow Robe Jr. Penumbra’s focus on social justice has grown in scope, he said, focusing on the stories and plights of others.

“I’m enjoying that a lot,” he said. “The ills that are (inflicted) on African Americans aren’t unique to them.”

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Lou Bellamy: MSU alum and founder of Penumbra Theatre

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