Berkshire County Historical Society

What can you write that you can’t say out loud? When you look between the lines of history books, where can you find your story? When have you had to say no to a dream? Conceived of by Tom Truss and co-created with Matthew Cumbie, ReWritten reflects on the often-overlooked intimate relationship between Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne as a way to explore queerness, history, intimacy, writing and self-expression. The relationship between Hawthorne and Melville has been characterized as one of the most mysterious and fruitful friendships in American letters, yet the letters from Hawthorne to Melville are missing. ReWritten springboards from this historic gap and time-hops between then and now as an attempt to expand how we see ourselves in these stories. Through performances and community engagements, ReWritten weaves together dance, music, visual art, projection, and text, and reimagines an intergenerational queer love story.