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Salem State’s Center for Creative and Performing Arts opens it fall season with ReWritten, Friday, September 16 at 7:30 pm in the Sophia Gordon Center, 356 Lafayette Street.

ReWritten is an immersive multi-disciplinary performance that explores the often-silenced intimate relationship between authors Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville. Moving between their lives, work, and remaining letters, ReWritten reimagines an intergenerational queer love story that helped shape American literature. Through dance, live music, visual art, projection, and text this performance questions what happens when we say no to dreams when we want to say yes. Co-created and performed by Tom Truss and Matthew Cumbie.

After Hawthorne and Melville met in August 1850, they continued to produce highly successful literature, fueled by the inspiration of their newfound counterpart. ReWritten implements a less heteronormative lens of the relationship between these two important American authors. With three Acts, the work first introduces each author to the audience before diving into the possibilities of their relationship.

The development of ReWritten has included residencies at the Bethany Arts Center (NY), Texas State University, Colby College (ME), the Berkshire Pulse (MA), and Dance Place (DC); a site-specific exploration of Herman Melville’s Arrowhead, developed in partnership with the Berkshire County Historical Society; a Humanities lab course on embodied research and literature analysis at Colby College; and workshops with local libraries and community centers. 

are $15 for General Admission, $10 for seniors, and free for students (with student ID) and under 18. This performance is a Salem Night with free admission for Salem residents with ID.