Sarah Bellamy puts racial healing center stage at her family's St. Paul theater company

Over the past year, professional success has been accompanied by profound personal loss for Sarah Bellamy, 44, the changemaker and visionary who is president and CEO of the Penumbra Center for Racial Healing in St. Paul. With support from foundations and funders, she has begun adding wellness and racial equity to the performing arts-focused company founded by her father, legendary theater director Lou Bellamy.

The positive side of the ledger also includes "Sugar in Our Wounds," a queer love story set in the antebellum South that in February became the first solo main stage show she directed for the company.

But the Bellamy family has had more than its share of grief. Lucas Bellamy, Sarah's younger brother, died last summer at 41 after battling addiction. Her uncle, Penumbra founding member and onetime leading man Terry Bellamy, died unexpectedly at 70 in January.

Through all of it, Bellamy keeps her shoulder to the wheel as she transforms her company into an institution with broader impact. The Star Tribune caught up with her recently as she talked about the changes she's making. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you give us a status update about where things are with Penumbra's transition?

We've fully staffed our program teams with three directors in arts, wellness and equity. In the fall, Penumbra will have plays that people can come to. And we'll have our Let's Talk discussion series. But there will be 12 new training modules that folks can come to to learn our racial healing practice. Our wellness director is working on a residency for practitioners. There's a lot of exciting stuff for folks to test and try and have a little bit of a tasting menu, if you will.

You started working on this idea to add healing and equity to the company's mission in 2015 but announced in 2020 ahead of schedule.

This mission felt really acute after George Floyd, which accelerated our plans to let people know that there was going to be another resource that's arts-based they could add to their tool kits for their own health. People are dying from spectacular public murders. They're dying from weathering racism. They're dying from fear. At the end of the day, these things shorten our life spans and decrease the quality of life by holding pain and hatred so near to us, whether it's something we're giving or receiving.

What do you say to those who feel like this is a big change for Penumbra?

In some ways, Penumbra is wearing its heart on its outside. We were always a place where people could heal. I experienced profound healing here as a young person. I know that my uncles and aunties who held the company for so long also built it well. And so, I guess, I felt that it was a really organic way to move the organization forward.

Can you give our readers an example of how you mitigate and heal racial trauma or ignorance?

I can speak generally because I don't have permission to speak specifically. And I'm going to speak about Penumbra. When we produced "Sugar in Our Wounds" this season, a deeply beautiful but painful play that required a lot of very intense historical excavation and a lot of physical intimacy, we were very intentional about putting the support there so that the actors would feel that they could be safe and go at a pace that felt tolerable. We extended our rehearsal period for that play and made sure to call in a brilliant intimacy coordinator who helped them understand what their bodies were feeling and express agency and boundaries around touch.

What was the result?

Actors are supposed to say yes and their boundaries are constantly being written over. For them to be able to mind the body, and have space, time and permission from the organization to safely explore, that was a really profound experience. That showed up in the work. And, this is important, they all left feeling resilient. No one left that process feeling broken, which happens often when we revisit these stories from American history.

Were the actors fearful going in?

Most of the actors came in with a very deep yes because they trust Penumbra and felt excited about the project. It was once we spoke the words and they understood the depth we would be traveling to that they started to feel embodied resistance. That embodied resistance tells you where your capacity limits are. And Black folks have not been given opportunities to say in a professional space, I'm sensing something and I feel safe enough to try to speak it.

When we talk about historic, epigenetic Black trauma, how does that relate to the larger society today?

I tend to think of the American psyche as having these layers of rock and sediment that we're standing on. The substrate level of so much white resistance to talking about race or sitting with racism is grief. That's the subconscious well that's underneath everything. It shows up in a lot of different ways, but grief is the hot live wire that people are afraid to touch. And if we make room for a patient process, people can get nearer to shame, embarrassment or ignorance.

There are not a lot of examples of successful efforts like this. What are the learnings there?

A lot of times we want to tell white people to show up in service of other people, but if they don't have a personal reason or gain to continue, that work is not sustainable. None of us can be committed 100% interminably in service to others. I have to understand what the benefit is for me. The most profound transformation that I've seen when I've coached people is when folks have been able to articulate this racial healing work that has required me to walk through really painful truths, required me to see myself through different eyes and mine these memories that I shuttered away because they were painful or embarrassing.

Sounds like you want to transform society.

My hope is that we eradicate fear and learn to be better community members. One of the really big problems in society now is polarization. I'm going to take my ball and go home. I don't like the way you play that game. We need for people to build up capacity to stay in the game. We need your voice, and not have you become an obstructionist later. Build with us so that it's reflective of your needs. There's room for everyone's needs to be met.

Tell us about joy and happiness here in all of this and the yardsticks that you have for success.

When people are happier and more resilient, they're more productive. That's good, but that's not all we're after. We're not trying to reinforce practices of capitalism that have used our bodies in ways that are alienating and profoundly destructive. So, I'm more interested in what happens when people feel more authentic, whole, and they come into a work environment where they can unlock more creativity. They can stay in a problem longer because they have capacity for resilience. Those are the tangible rewards for me.

Penumbra started 47 years ago with a much narrower focus.

When I look at Black institutions, queer institutions, trans-led institutions, what I see are people who are so attuned to the violence of our history and so resilient in their own joy and ability to live, that they create a space for others. These places are cultural gems that we need to invest in for everyone's wellness. They tend to be seen as for specific experiences and small audiences. What I'm saying is, those folks can be your wisest teachers because they know, in their bodies, souls and survival, skills that if you're willing to listen and if they're generous enough to share, could rescue all of us.