Quintessence Theatre Group hosted the world premiere of “Fire!!” this weekend. The play focuses on the beginnings of what came to be called the Harlem Renaissance. With its large cast and robust support team, the show generates enough energy to light up 10 city blocks.

Years in the making, Quintessence commissioned the play in collaboration with the New Classics Collective of Chicago. Co-authored by Marilyn Campbell-Lowe and Paul Oakley Stovall, the work is a dramatization of “Fire!!,” a Black avant-garde magazine that challenged Black intellectuals to burn up outdated ideas.

As founder of “Fire!!,” Wallace Thurman shines a light on the rebellious writings of neglected writers including Zora Neale Hurston, Gwendolyn Bennett, Langston Hughes and Richard Bruce Nugent. Their works mine the poetic potential of the Black vernacular and explore taboo subjects such as homosexuality, prostitution and colorism. But the project was short-lived. Thurman only produced one issue in 1926 because, ironically, his publishing house was destroyed by fire (was it arson?).

How do you create a drama about the poems, plays and stories of a literary magazine? Campbell-Lowe and Stovall come up with a play-within-a-play approach: Facing immediate financial ruin, Thurman organizes a fund-raising gala. Magazine stories are reenacted on a front stage while, behind the scenes, Thurman wrangles with actors over money woes, Black identity issues and the sniping of critics.

The reenactment of the magazine’s tales is electric. A large cast takes on the persona of 11 Harlem Renaissance writers and artists. Director Raelle Myrick-Hodges takes advantage of Adam Faulk’s jazzy compositions, LeVonne Lindsay’s sumptuous costume design and the expressive choreography of Polanco Jones Jr.

The actors sweep you up in a stream of happenings, starring in solo and ensemble roles. You cannot single out one actor; each has a vibrant cameo moment. The best aspect of the show is the seamless melding of acting with a jazz music sensibility and dance. One by one, the actors riff on the shared motif of Black distress, then pass it on to another performer.

But for play-within-a-play to succeed, you have to feel the dramatic tension between the two venues. Here is where the production stumbles. Behind-the-scenes events do not have to be literally behind the scenes. But here, most are staged in an ill-equipped rear room, so far from the main stage that you struggle to see and hear.

This staging is inexplicable. Quintessence has only repurposed the inner core of The Sedgwick for live theater. Elsewhere, sound is muffled. With artful lighting and props, you can easily situate behind-the-scenes segments on the main stage. Then you could actually see and hear, experience the dramatic tension between the gala performance and the performers’ private world.

The sole publication of “Fire!!” in 1926 is an authentic historical event, the birth of a free-thinking Black consciousness that refuses to seek approval from any quarter, primarily rejecting the status-seeking Black intellectual set. While the production captures the energy of the Harlem Renaissance, the staging fails to invigorate the play’s dramatic premise. You experience the gala events, but the behind-the-scenes joy and suffering that undergirds “the show” is shortchanged.

Quintessence Theatre is located at 7137 Germantown Ave. “Fire!!” will run through Nov 2. Tickets are available at 215-987-4450. Final note: If interested, you can buy an inexpensive paperback facsimile of “Fire!!,” complete with the original cover art by Aaron Douglas, on Amazon or eBay.