Penumbra: The Premier Stage for African American Drama

INTRODUCTION

xi INTRODUCTION Someday somebody’ll stand up and talk ’bout me, and write about me—Black and beautiful—and sing about me, and put on plays about me . . . I reckon it will be me myself! Yes, it will be me. —Langston Hughes, “Note on Commercial Theatre” My earliest memory of visiting Penumbra Theatre Company was as part of a high school field trip I took when I was a student at the Perpich Center for Arts Education. I remember the school bus driving through the historically black Selby-Dale neighborhood of St. Paul, Minnesota, and dropping us off at the main entrance of the Martin Luther King Jr./Hallie Q. Brown Community Center. As my class entered the building, we filed past portraits of civil rights activists, a child care center, and meeting rooms used by community organizers. We made our way down a narrow hallway to the 260-seat theatre. As we sat waiting for the show to begin, the smell of home cooking filled the air, the room darkened, and lighting effects simulated dawn breaking outside a small upstage window that looked out on a backdrop of painted bricks. An actress (Tonia Jackson) entered and began her preshow business of setting the table for breakfast and tidying the bedding on a small, dilapidated couch. I remember being impressed by the level of detail and sensory stimulation that this preshow moment provided. The whole environment seemed appropriately suited to reveal the truths present in the play we had come to see, Lorraine Hansberry’s seminal work A Raisin in the Sun. Now that my job is to teach others about the practice and appreciation of theatre making, I have moved, like many academics before me, from an initial interest in the pleasure value of theatre toward xii INTRODUCTION an investigation of theatre’s use value. I look not only at the content of the work being produced but also at the relationship of the work to the environment of its production. This includes the mission and purpose of the company that produces it, the reasons why people come to see it, the motivations of the people who fund it, and the contributions a particular theatrical work makes to the civic and cultural life of the city in which it takes place. While no analysis can ever be exhaustive, any study of theatre that seeks to articulate its social and cultural value must acknowledge the importance of at least some of these relational components. Although unable to express it at the time, I had an intuitive appreciation of Penumbra’s production of A Raisin in the Sun as deeply and palpably rooted in the historic practice of African American theatre as both a means of cultural expression and a mode of social justice. Penumbra’s productions position themselves as culturally specific activities that privilege self-representation. Penumbra’s location inside an African American community center is an indication that the company’s theatrical work is part of a larger conversation within its specific community regarding the history and character of a communal , racially based social identity. In Penumbra’s production of A Raisin in the Sun, for instance, the theatre created opportunities in the form of postshow discussions and symposia for audiences, scholars , and community members to enter into conversations about the legacy of segregation and the continuance of racially discriminatory housing practices and economic policies. These actions tied the issues depicted onstage to related issues within the local community. This is what makes seeing a play at Penumbra profoundly different from seeing the same play anywhere else. Penumbra participates in a variety of practices that use African American theatre as a means of social and cultural engagement. After several years of attending Penumbra shows as an audience member, I was given the opportunity to actively participate in the work of the theatre when I was awarded the August Wilson Fellowship in Dramaturgy and Literary Criticism as part of my graduate studies at the University of Minnesota. As the August Wilson Fellow, I facilitated postshow discussions, provided dramaturgical support, and assisted in the organization of Penumbra’s annual symposia series. All of these activities helped me articulate the importance INTRODUCTION xiii of African American theatre in general, and Penumbra Theatre Company in particular. In many ways, this book is a continuation of those efforts. The work that Penumbra Theatre Company creates honors the historical presence of African Americans...