Our Story
“A person has one life, but a play has many: The life it lived when first written and performed…And then the life it lives each time the work is spoken by someone, somewhere, somewhen—each time made new.”
The plays of Belville Productions are drawn from social issues, folklore, and history. We encourage revivals of the works of the late Lance S. Belville, a founder of Minnesota's History Theatre. As its playwright-in-residence for 15 years, his hits built the foundation for a professional theater nearing its 50th season.
Belville was first a foreign correspondent for United Press International and ABC News stationed for nine years in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After moving to New York and getting off- and off-off-Broadway credits, Belville settled in Minneapolis-St. Paul where he was a member of the Playwrights Center, winner of Drama Critics Circle Kudos Awards, and the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting. From1995 until his death in 2020, Belville lived and wrote in the San Francisco Bay area. Belville was the author of more than 50 produced plays (US, Brazil, Mexico, and England), documentary films, and numerous yet-to-be-published journals and stories.
Recent productions of Belville plays include a run at the Actors Centre in London, festival performances in Hollywood, San Diego, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, New York and San Francisco, scenes recreated for an international conference in Sweden, and remountings of three of his plays in Minnesota and New Jersey in 2025.