Actors in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, by August Wilson, at the Penumbra Theatre, 2014. Photograph by Michael Daniel. CC BY-SA 2.0

Actors onstage in August Wilson's Two Trains Running, 2003. From Penumbra Theatre Company records (GV002), Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.

Actors in a Penumbra Theatre Company production of Langston Hughes' Black Nativity, 1999. From folder 36, box 53 of Penumbra Theatre Company records (GV002), Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.

Lou Bellamy, August Wilson, and Claude Purdy (left to right), 1996. From Penumbra Theatre Company records (GV002), Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.

Cast members of Sally’s Rape onstage at Penumbra Theatre, ca. 1994. From Penumbra Theatre Company records (GV002), Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.

Actors onstage at Penumbra Theatre performing August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, 1993. From Penumbra Theatre Company records (GV002), Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature. University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.

A promotional photograph of Songhai, 1980. From Penumbra Theatre Company records (GV002), Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature. University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.

Actors in Jelly Belly Don’t Mess with Nobody, 1985. From Penumbra Theatre Company records (GV002), Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature. University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.

Actors in the Penumbra Theatre production of Micki Grant’s Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope, 1983. From folder 20, box 50 of Penumbra Theatre Company records (GV002), Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature. University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.

The cast of Eden onstage at Penumbra Theatre. Artistic director Lou Bellamy stands at the far left. Photograph by Steve Carter, 1977. From Penumbra Theatre Company records (GV002), Archie Givens, Sr. Collection of African American Literature. University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.