Given how much is at stake, the youthful new leaders of Penumbra Theatre and Mu Performing Arts have slid into their jobs with seeming ease and a surprising lack of drama.
Sarah Bellamy, 35, is taking over from her father, Lou Bellamy, at Penumbra Theatre, the nation's largest and most-esteemed African-American company and one that teetered near financial collapse just two years ago.
Randy Reyes, 41, has been in charge at Mu since last fall, when he took over from founder and longtime leader Rick Shiomi.
"We're watching what happens as the baton is passed, not only because it's a critical moment when you move from founder-led organizations," said Angelique Williams-Power, senior program officer for culture at the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation. "We've lost a lot of organizations in such transitions."
Bellamy and Reyes, both charismatic and outspoken, represent more than a generational shift or an administrative shuffle. They are charting new courses in ways that audiences are certain to notice.
Penumbra's recently announced 2014-15 season, themed "womansong," features work by an unprecedented number of female directors and playwrights, including Lynn Nottage and Dominique Morisseau, at the St. Paul playhouse best known as the artistic home of Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson.
Reyes announced a season that does not hew to the folk plays that were a Mu staple early on. Instead, the lineup includes two new plays plus reinterpretations of classics from the American and Asian-American canon.
Leadership style
Bellamy and Reyes also are being watched as examples of leaders of a new generation, Williams-Power said.