MacKenzie Scott's $5 million gift a springboard for Penumbra Theatre's new mission

Jun. 17—Penumbra Theatre's Sarah Bellamy was waiting for her groceries to be bagged at Kowalski's Market on Grand Avenue in St. Paul one morning in March when she got an email asking if she could take a phone call.

Someone connected to billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, was on the line within minutes. "They said, 'Do you have a moment to talk?'" and I was, like, 'Sure,'" she said. "I had no idea what it was about. I was so not thinking that it was anything like this."

Penumbra, the caller said, would be receiving $5 million — the largest single donation in the 45-year-old theater company's history.

Penumbra and Minneapolis' Arts Midwest were among the 286 organizations awarded $2.7 billion in grants announced earlier this week by Scott. It was the third round of no-strings-attached, major philanthropic gifts Scott has made to charities and racial-equity causes.

"Fortunately, I was sitting down when they told me," said Bellamy, who since 2017 has been artistic director of the theater company that her father, Lou Bellamy, founded. "I was, like, this is amazing. I want your job. I want to call people and tell them that they are getting transformative amounts of funding out of the blue."

Bellamy, who was sworn to secrecy until this week, said the $5 million donation is already in Penumbra's coffers. The money, she said, will help springboard the St. Paul-based theater company, which has an annual budget of $2.5 million, into a center for racial healing.

"Transformative doesn't quite cover what such a donation means for our organization," she said.

Penumbra is in the process of evolving into the Penumbra Center for Racial Healing, building upon its decades of nurturing Black artists, promoting racial equity "and inspiring creative resiliency," Bellamy said.

The $5 million grant represents a "tidal change" for Penumbra and "supercharges our ability to realize the center for racial healing," she said.

"When we announced the vision to evolve the organization, people asked, 'How did you know?'" Bellamy said. "We knew because we're living it. Minnesota is still reeling from tragedy that continues to be compounded by violence as recently as last week. Our work is urgently needed."

Penumbra will immediately establish opportunity reserves and operations reserves — "things that an organization like Penumbra, which is a legacy institution of color, have always wanted, but have never really been able to institute because we've never had the capital to do it," Bellamy said.

Bellamy grew up in and around the halls of Penumbra and has worked for the organization for 20 years. "I've gone through all of the ups and downs," she said. "I've seen my father mortgage our house twice to try to keep that place afloat. I was there at that table in 2012 when we were deciding whether or not we would close the doors. I've been through some real trauma with that space.

"Sitting now, in a place of abundance, is powerful," she said. "I've never experienced anything quite like this. For the people, our company members who have invested their blood, sweat and tears in that space, this is all a new horizon for us. It takes time for an organization like this to heal."

Whether Penumbra will stay housed inside the Hallie Q. Brown Martin Luther King Center in St. Paul remains unknown. "What we're trying to figure out is the scale of the organization to expand and grow and realize a really robust vision that brings a lot of different kinds of services to our community," Bellamy said. "We definitely need a larger footprint. If we can work that out, wonderful, but I think we're open to relocating if we have to."

Bellamy praised Scott for her philanthropy.

"It feels really good to find alignment with donors who really want to see racial equity work happen and racial healing work happen and who understand the power of loving and complex representations of Black people in our culture," she said. "That's been Penumbra's mission for 45 years, and we have stayed true to that in times when it was in vogue in other places and in times when it was not. That's what we do."