(Up until then, she had walked off with every contest for young poets she had ever entered and wasn’t about to let this one go.)Īlternating throughout the economic yet impassioned narrative, crafted by Dick Scanlan, the plot features her mother (Katie Thompson), sisters Norma (Mikaela Bennett) and Kathleen (Danny Harris Kornfeld), absent father (Donald Webber, Jr., also taking on other roles) and an editor (Jason Gotay, also taking on other roles). When the ensemble members finish the appealing prologue, they hurry onto the temporary thrust stage and start telling the story of how “Vincent” (Hannah Corneau), as the poet called herself, fought to be acknowledged as the contest winner. Maybe this isn’t news to poetry lovers, but it has its strengths.

The tactic is a charming way to suggest how poems come to be: how verbal images, how metrical requirements are taken into consideration.

Pointedly, the poem “Renascence” also begins the intermissionless piece, as its six cast members walk into the Abrons Center auditorium aisles and begin speaking only the introductory lines as if they-not Millay-are thinking it up on the spot.

“Renascence” still remains one of her most beloved works. (A previous recipient was announced and anger ensued.) Nevertheless, the correction ultimately established Millay for its wiser-than-Millay’s-years appreciation of nature, of premature death and jubilant rebirth. The poem-written when Millay was 19 and submitted to a contest for which the $1000 first prize would be a boon to her family whose ineffective father had fled-prevailed only after some complications. The “Renascence” music piece includes all of Millay’s 105 iambic tetrameters and, with its urgent choreography by Scott Rink, takes perhaps 10 minutes to perform. This is the latest unique Jack Cumming III project for his always-unique Transport Group presentations. How so? Her “Renascence” composition serves as the enthralling finale to Renascence, now at the Abrons Center. Doing that, she has also given audiences an equally uplifting gift. She has set the revered poet’s “Renascence” to glorious, moody, insistent music. Vincent Millay an extremely generous favor. Photo by Carol RoseggĬarmel Dean has done Edna St. Danny Harris Kornfeld, Hannah Corneau, Mikaela Bennett in Renascence.

Edna st vincent millay renascence