Penumbra leader Sarah Bellamy stepping aside after lawsuit over brother’s death in jail

The Penumbra Center for Racial Healing announced Monday that president and CEO Sarah Bellamy is taking a leave of absence in the wake of her family’s lawsuit against Hennepin County jail and Hennepin Healthcare alleging the wrongful death of her brother.

The development comes a week after the family announced the federal lawsuit and showed video footage of the last minutes of Lucas Bellamy’s life.

A scion of the prominent Twin Cities arts family and a former actor and company manager at Penumbra Theatre, Lucas Bellamy died July 21, 2022, at the Hennepin County jail from a perforated bowel. He had long struggled with addiction and was taken into custody on July 18.

The family’s troubles would be compounded six months later when actor and dramaturge Terry Bellamy, Lucas’ uncle and brother of Penumbra Theatre founder Lou Bellamy, died of complications from COVID-19 in January 2023.

“I feel like the work that I do at Penumbra is soul work, and my soul is very weary right now,” Sarah told the Star Tribune tearfully, adding that she needs time and space to restore her own spirit. “There is so much darkness running around right now, I feel like I need to lift myself out of it the best way I can.”

Although temporary, the step away from leadership marks the first time in 48 years — since the company’s 1976 founding — that a Bellamy will not be running day-to-day operations at the company. Lou built Penumbra into a national powerhouse that gave two-time Pulitzer winner August Wilson his first production and that minted talented theater artists who would go on to work on Broadway and across the country.

Since taking over leadership from her father in 2017, Sarah has expanded Penumbra’s mission beyond performing arts to include practices in racial healing and equity. Amy Thomas, the chief operating officer who has been Sarah’s partner and right hand for her entire tenure, will step in to hold the reins.

“I feel for the Bellamys for the whirlwind of loss they’ve had to endure in the last 18 months,” Thomas said. “It’s hard to watch them bear so much grief.”

Sarah said she first saw the video of her brother’s final hours on Jan. 15, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The next day would have been Lucas’ 43rd birthday.

“We watched the last hours of his life,” Sarah said. “He was treated like an animal, subhuman. Even in jail and even for addicts, people should be treated with dignity and as human beings.”

Sarah’s leave comes at a critical time for Penumbra, which is in the midst of a programmatic expansion and on the cusp of a structural one.

Since 2019, Penumbra’s budget has nearly doubled to $5 million as it builds out its new vision. Penumbra is planning to modify its space in the Halle Q. Brown Community Center so that it can offer wellness services on site, Thomas said.

The company also plans to add a flexible black box theater that can also be used for community gatherings, group classes and other functions.

“Because of Sarah’s leadership, we’re in a good place on all our plans,” Thomas said.

The length of her leave has not been determined.

“The Bellamys have given so much to this organization and this community; the board and the organization are in full agreement that Sarah should take as long as she needs,” Thomas said.

The Bellamys are calling for a federal investigation into the conditions at Hennepin County jail. That plea extends the healing activism that has been her life’s work, Sarah said.

“The name ‘penumbra’ means ‘partial shadow,’ and a lot of the work we do tries to illuminate things that are hard to look at,” she said. “For us to do that authentically, I have to be strong enough and well enough to do it. And I have to be able to translate all the darkness around my brother’s death into some sort of light and energy to make the world better.”