Alongside plays, Penumbra’s 2023-24 season will include expanded racial justice workshops and healing programs

Jared Kaufman, Pioneer Press
·2 min read

With its upcoming arts season, Penumbra is continuing its growth into a wide-ranging community center for racial healing.

The organization, long one of the country’s most renowned Black theater companies, plans to expand its equity training initiatives and add a healing and wellness residency, alongside its annual slate of staged plays. Penumbra was founded in St. Paul nearly five decades ago.

Here’s what the theater season holds:

“Re-Memori” (Oct. 12–Nov. 5) is the world premiere of a one-woman show by Nambi E. Kelly that asks, “Are the struggles of our ancestors ever really in the past?”

“Black Nativity” (Nov. 30–Dec. 24), the theater’s regular Christmas show originally by Langston Hughes, features music from Sanford Moore and the Kingdom Life Church Choir and choreography by Gary Abbott.

“Wine in the Wilderness” (Feb 22–March 17), by renowned playwright Alice Childress, tackles Black womanhood and the role of the arts in a community through the lens of a Harlem painter. The show is directed by Lou Bellamy.

“Flex” (April 25–May 19), a coming-of-age story written by Candrice Jones and directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene, centers on a group of high school basketball stars in the late 1990s exploring what it means to leave their childhood behind in search of something bigger.

As part of the organization’s broadened mission, Penumbra is also expanding its offerings of equity workshops, which are led by artists and incorporate theater principles. This racial justice programming is often arranged for organizations or teams, but Penumbra is hosting a series of public workshops on some of the topics their equity curriculum covers:

Oct. 20: Fundamentals of Psychological Safety

Nov. 10: Cultivating Authentic Belonging

Feb. 9: Fostering Allyship

April 12: Foundations for Racial Healing

May 10: Strategies for BIPOC Wellbeing

Penumbra is also continuing its “Let’s Talk” series on four Mondays this season, where experts will facilitate conversations with community members:

Oct. 23: The Racial Healing Imperative

Dec. 4: Pillars of Psychological Safety

Feb. 26: Caregiving Through Community

April 29: Athletes and Activism

Once the season gets underway, Penumbra plans to further expand its wellness programming. Monthly collective racial healing circles are set to begin in the fall, and the organization is launching a residency program for healing practitioners, too.

“Racial healing can be a joyful, restorative practice,” said Sarah Bellamy, the organization’s president, in a statement. “We are energized to address the impacts of racism with holistic and relational methods.”

Tickets for Penumbra’s arts season are not on sale yet, but they will be available online at penumbratheatre.org or by calling the box office at 651-224-3180.

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