Penumbra: The Premier Stage for African American Drama

7 Maintaining a Legacy

143 SEVEN MAINTAINING A LEGACY Marking the path is important. . . . So many people have given so much of themselves to build and maintain Penumbra. —Lou Bellamy, “U Libraries and Penumbra Theatre Celebrate a Birthday and Recent Archive Acquisition” In recent years Penumbra Theatre Company has faced a series of financial challenges while simultaneously preparing for the eventual retirement of founder and artistic director Lou Bellamy. Consequently, the theatre has taken steps to document its own history and prepare for an uncertain future. In 2006, Penumbra donated its archives to the University of Minnesota’s Archie Givens Sr. Collection of African American Literature. A ceremony commemorating the university’s acquisition of the archive was held in May 2007. A press release for the event quotes Bellamy as saying: It is crucial to impart the knowledge we have gained on building community to future generations. This effort must ensure their access to the documentation that shows what we have done, that we were here, that we marked the path. It is our history.1 In 2008, Sarah Bellamy began the August Wilson Lab, an oral history initiative in which she interviewed many original company members with the intention of recognizing the historical achievements of the theatre and defining Penumbra’s singular performance aesthetic in terms of purpose, form, and methodology. The August Wilson Lab, at the time of writing, is still in progress and when completed, will be housed in the Penumbra archives at the University of Minnesota. 144 MAINTAINING A LEGACY In 2010, the theatre was the subject of a short radio documentary, “Penumbra Theatre: Darkness into Light,” written, produced, and directed by Andy Driscoll and aired on local radio station KFAI.2 As part of this documentary, Driscoll interviewed Lou Bellamy and company members Abdul Salaam El Razzac, Jim Craven, Faye M. Price, Austene Van, and T. Mychael Rambo. All of these archival efforts have been an attempt to concretize the achievements of the theatre and stake a claim that denies the possibility of cultural erasure. It is evident from these efforts that many institutions and people have worked together to make sure the legacy of the theatre is remembered and honored regardless of the theatre’s future circumstances. In respect to strategic planning for its future, Penumbra has taken several actions designed to increase the likelihood of organizational survival. In a multiyear effort completed in 2007, Penumbra managed to eliminate $600,000 of financial debt, increase the operating budget of the theatre, and implement an artistic succession plan. These accomplishments were made possible through an organizational restructuring and the completion of the company’s New Era campaign, which was planned by Penumbra’s board of directors and implemented under the leadership of the theatre’s managing director , Chris Widdess.3 To understand how the programming and financial viability of a nonprofit theatre is supported and guided by a company’s board of directors, I interviewed current and former board members Phyllis Rawls Goff and Stew Widdess. Goff served as chair of Penumbra’s board several times during her twenty-year association with the theatre and thus has one of the deepest understandings of the evolving relationship between the board and the theatre. Goff laid out the responsibilities of Penumbra’s board: First and foremost governance includes having a fiduciary responsibility in terms of the financial health of the organization. So it’s oversight to make sure the organization is financially healthy, paying its bills, and handling the money the way our donors have requested that the money be handled. In addition, a job of almost all nonprofit organizations, especially small ones, is to fund-raise, so that would be another key responsibility. Finally, [the board’s responsibility is] to be ambassadors to the organization, to help promote the organization, to help spread the word across the MAINTAINING A LEGACY 145 community, and to all the business and social networks to which a board member is involved.4 Goff then gave a concrete example of how she, as a board member, has used the community networks to which she belongs on behalf of the theatre: For my networks, most recently, it was taking a group from my church on an outing to Penumbra, promoting Penumbra at my church and then pulling together a group of people to go and see the latest play. That group ended up being fifty people. Now, for fifty people to come to a...