Penumbra Theatre president Sarah Bellamy with her father and company founder Lou Bellamy, who will be directing two of the four plays in the 2023-24 season. (Leila Navidi, Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Plays with bigger programmatic wings will be featured in Penumbra Theatre's 2023-24 season.

As it continues to build out its broadened mission, the 47-year-old St. Paul company best known for being an artistic home for August Wilson will expand and complement its shows with programming around racial healing and equity. The upcoming roster also is themed around belonging and centers the voices and power of women.

The four-show season kicks off with the world premiere of Nambi E. Kelly's "Re-Memori," a one-woman show that asks a chicken-or-egg question: When you dream of ancestors, are you dreaming of them or are they dreaming of you?

The play touches on memory and consciousness as a Black woman connects to her ancestry from enslavement to the Black Lives Matter era. Chris Berry, the new head of arts programming at Penumbra, makes his directorial debut (Oct. 12-Nov. 5).

"Black Nativity," Penumbra's holiday tradition since 1987, returns with the Kingdom Life Church Choir, choreography of Gary Abbott and musical direction of Sanford Moore. Langston Hughes' oratorio will again be staged by Penumbra founder Lou Bellamy (Nov. 30-Dec. 24).

Bellamy also will direct a revival of Alice Childress' 1969 drama "Wine in the Wilderness," set at the tail end of the 1964 urban uprising in Harlem. The play focuses on Black women's identity as a male painter seeks to capture the essence of womanhood. His vision is shown to be limited in this play that's part of a national revival of interest in the works of Childress (Feb. 22-March 17, 2024).

Penumbra concludes its mainstage theater season with Candrice Jones' "Flex," a drama about female hoop dreams just as the WNBA is starting. Set in rural Arkansas in 1997, "Flex" focuses on four teens who've hitched their hopes of escape and greatness to basketball, even as the stresses threaten to fracture their friendship and esprit. Tiffany Nichole Greene directs this funny and moving area premiere (April 25-May 19, 2024).

Penumbra also will be offering concomitant equity workshops that run 90 minutes, for a half-day or all-day. Led by artists and facilitators, the programs will use theatrical tools and include titles such as "Fundamentals of Psychological Safety" (Oct. 20), "Cultivating Authentic Belonging" (Nov. 10), "Fostering Allyship" (Feb. 9, 2024), and "Foundations for Racial Healing" (April 12, 2024).

The theater also will host group wellness residencies and continue its "Let's Talk" series of conversations and sharing.

Both the arts offerings and the programs around healing and equity can be "joyful and restorative," Penumbra president Sarah Bellamy said in a statement. "Wherever you join us, I hope that you too will find a journey of healing and belonging."

Subscription packages are $115-$144, and are on sale. Contact 651-224-3180 or penumbratheatre.org.