A Twin Cities holiday classic: Black Nativity is a must-see show

[MUSIC PLAYING - "SWEET LITTLE JESUS BOY"] SINGER: (SINGING) Sweet little Jesus boy, they made you be born in a manger.

CATHY WURZER: Oh. In the Twin Cities theater scene, there are two must see shows at the holidays, A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie in Minneapolis and the play Black Nativity at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, and that song is fantastic.

Lou Bellamy founded penumbra in 1976, 46 years ago. He's the current co-creative director, and he is on the line to talk about Penumbra and his holiday classic. You know how thrilled I am to have you on the air with me here, Lou? How have you been?

LOU BELLAMY: I'm fine. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. Hearing that music, it's stirring. It gets you going. It's good.

CATHY WURZER: It does. It does. It's a beautiful song. So tell us the story of how the play Black Nativity by Langston Hughes was first produced by Penumbra.

LOU BELLAMY: Well, his idea-- it was just after the Emancipation Proclamation. And newly-freed slaves were on the way north. And they paused just after crossing the Mason-Dixon line and celebrated the first free Christmas in Missouri, which was Langston Hughes's birthplace.

And it was in a barn, and they celebrated freedom and Christmas at the same time. It was beautiful. Since that time, we've done various renditions of the show. And the one up now is probably the closest to the one--

CATHY WURZER: Hmm. You know, I think we might have lost you, Lou. You were kind of going in and out, which I--

LOU BELLAMY: Oh.

CATHY WURZER: --yeah-- hmm. You were just talking about how this particular rendition is closest to what Langston Hughes was really looking at, looking for. What's your favorite part of Black Nativity, if you had to pick a scene?

LOU BELLAMY: Oh, I think that it's probably the dancers or the end of it, where the congregation is called together, and the audience just erupts in agreement and answering. There's a form that is particularly African American that is called call and response.

And the minister makes a call, and the response from the audience is really wonderful. People leave the show always smiling, always happy. And it's a good place to be.

[MUSIC PLAYING - "GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN"]

CHOIR: (SINGING) Go tell on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere.

CATHY WURZER: Gosh, what kind of feedback from audiences do you value the most?

LOU BELLAMY: Well, you know, sometimes, Cathy, it happens in a surprising way. But I remember being in the lobby, and a little boy was running through the lobby, a little Black boy. And he ran into this woman and hit her in the knees, sort of-- not hard, but just bumped into her.

And it was a white lady. And it was the most interesting thing. She bent down. She said, "Oh, honey, are you the little Black Jesus?"

And I went, oh, my lord. This is transformative. Something's going on. I bet that those two words, "Black" and "Jesus," never were in that woman's vocabulary before.

CATHY WURZER: I bet you are right. Wow.

LOU BELLAMY: We used to have-- there was a performer, unfortunately, who's passed on now, by the name of Joe Carter, who used to sing in the show. And there was a little boy who was not speaking. He wouldn't speak. And he heard Joe Carter sing and began to talk. I swear it was truly a miracle.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, my gosh.

LOU BELLAMY: So lots of things have happened there.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah, wow. That is magical. That's beyond magical.

LOU BELLAMY: Yes.

CATHY WURZER: Wow. You know, clearly, my friend, you've done this work for a long while now. And I want to go back into the MPR archives for just a moment here. I want to play a clip from an interview you did here at MPR back in December of 1995.

LOU BELLAMY: OK.

CATHY WURZER: And you began by talking about your mother.

LOU BELLAMY: She had this sort of demure veneer. But you could scratch that veneer very quickly. And there was something else that was more of the hood and everything beneath.

Now, as an adult, when I look back, I remember us sitting down to eat. We were living up on Dale, and we were having scrambled eggs. And I wasn't into these scrambled eggs for dinner. You know, this is breakfast food. What are you doing?

And she said, well, you eat the eggs. And I noticed that she wasn't eating. As an adult, when I look back at that now, I realized there wasn't enough food. But we had no idea that that was going on. I mean, we always thought we were in very, very good shape.

My grandmother and aunt, who were maids at Field-Schlick Department Store, and my grandfather, who was a domestic at the Minnesota Club, they would bring me downtown on Saturdays and dress me up. And it was very clear that I was the future, and I wasn't going to be what they're doing. It was just so crystal-clear to me that I was going to go to college, that there was a better life for me. And I was expected to do that.

CATHY WURZER: Tell me, Lou Bellamy, about what it felt like to have that kind of expectation that you would succeed. Was it a burden or an invitation?

LOU BELLAMY: It was an invitation. It was a sort of a normal expectation. And hearing that is just disarming.

I've done the same thing with my daughter. I remember her working in the lobby, selling soda and coffee and all that sort of thing. And when I told her, I said, now you're going to have to do a show. You're going to have to go up on the stage and welcome the audience, thank them for coming and so forth.

And she was just aghast by it all. But those kinds of expectations of a child, it becomes who you are. I was early on called the professor in my home. Well, here comes the professor. And we sort of laughed over it.

Well, didn't I become a professor? [LAUGHS] It's really odd. But those kinds of expectations happen inside of community, and they were ones that differed from the outside community that said that I wasn't worthy of that sort of thing.

So it was necessary for those Black women, largely, to put those expectations on me. And it worked, you know? Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, yeah. It worked quite well, yes, knowing you and looking at what you've done. Now, I recently read that after your very first play-- I think that was Eden-- when it hit the stage, a critic in Minneapolis wrote-- and this is a direct quote-- "If Eden is an indication of things to come, this newest venture on the Twin Cities theater scene deserves a long existence."

OK. So 46 years later, here you still are. What do you feel has been the keys to your success?

LOU BELLAMY: Well, I think that we've always understood that we were a professional theater inside of a community and responsible to that community. We were doing theater that had a larger purpose than just art. Now, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with doing things because they can be aesthetically and artistically appreciated.

But we always saw a larger opportunity. And that opportunity was to bring ideas to our community to heal. My daughter, Sarah, calls it inviting an audience to enter the contract between them and the theater performers in a heart-first manner. Art generally can be a way of organizing community. And that's what I see and am most proud about that we've done.

CATHY WURZER: Well, Lou Bellamy, you are a treasure. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. We're going to be watching. Again, go to see Black Nativity. It is just a fantastic production. And, of course, all best to you in the new year.

LOU BELLAMY: Thank you. Thank you very much.

[MUSIC PLAYING - "GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN"]

CHOIR: (SINGING) Go tell it on the mountain.

CATHY WURZER: Lou Bellamy is the founder and current co-creative director at the Penumbra Theatre. You can find more information about their upcoming performances on their website, penumbratheatre.org. Black Nativity is on the stage through Christmas Eve, Saturday, December 24. I love Lou Bellamy. He's an amazing guy.