38 Commerce Street
Turn right on Barrow for a short way then left on Commerce. The Cherry Lane Theatre is where Commerce turns the corner.
Dylan’s Readings
The poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay founded Cherry Lane Theatre, which was originally Cherry Lane Playhouse, in 1924. As New York’s oldest off-Broadway theatre, it has been at the forefront of providing innovative theatre for over 80 years. The Downtown Theatre movement, The Living Theatre, established by actress and political activist Judith Malina, and the Theatre of the Absurd came out of the Playhouse.
It showcased the early plays of Edward Albee and premiered Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Its list of renowned performers includes Gene Hackman, Bob Dylan and, of course, Dylan Thomas. Barbra Streisand was once an usher there.
In 1952, on his 2nd visit, Dylan did a special reading for the artistic community. Tickets were only $1 and Thomas had promised to read only his own poems. The show was nearly cancelled when he arrived claiming to have lost his copy of his poems. Judith Malina came to the rescue with a replacement that Dylan later returned, complete with the hand-written bookmarks he had used for the performance.
There is also another possible link between Edna St. Vincent Millay and Dylan Thomas. Millay (1892 - 1951) wrote a poem “Dirge without Music.” It has these lines:
“Down, down, down into the darkness of the graveIt brings to mind Thomas’s famous villanelle “Do not go gentle into that good night,” which was drafted in March 1951. Millay’s poem, in fact, appeared in The New Pocket Anthology of American Verse, edited by Dylan’s American friend Oscar Williams, which contained some poems by Dylan.
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”
