scott my darling lover - everything seems so smooth and restful, like this yellow dusk. knowing that I’ll always be yours - that you really own me - that nothing can keep us apart - is such a relief after the strain and nervous excitement of the last month. i’m so glad you came - like summer, just when i needed you most - and took me back with you. waiting doesn’t seem so hard now. the vague despondency has gone - i love you sweetheart. why did you buy the “best at the exchange”? i’d rather have had 10 c a quart variety - i wanted it just to know you loved the sweetness - to breathe and know you loved the smell - i think i like breathing twilit gardens and moths more than beautiful pictures or good books - it seems the most sensual of all the sences - something in me vibrates to a dusky, dreamy smell - a smell of dying moons and shadows - i’ve spent today in the grave yard - it really isn’t a cemetery, you know - trying to unlock a rusty iron vault built in the side of the hill. it’s all washed and covered with weepy, watery blue flowers that might have grown from dead eyes - sticky to touch with a sickening odor - the boys wanted to get in to test my nerve - tonight - i wanted to feel “william wreford, 1864” why should graves make people feel in vain - i’ve heard that so much, and grey is so convincing, but somehow i can’t find anything hopeless in having lived - all the broken columnes and clasped hands and doves and angels mean romances and in an hundred years i think i shall like having young people speculate on whether my eyes were brown or blue - of cource, they are neither - i hope my grave has an air of many, many years ago about it- isn’t it funny how, out of a row of confederate soldiers, two or three will make you think Sunday, of dead loversOctober and dead loves -when they’re exactly like 24, 2021 4pm the others, even to the yellowish moss? old death is so beautiful Commonwealth Ave,- CFA - so very855 beautiful - we will die together i know 102 - sweetheart
The Salamander and the Impediment
WRITTEN BY CHARLOTTE WEINMAN DIRECTED BY ENZO GONZALES
Artistic Team Playwright Director Dramaturg Assistant Director
Charlotte Weinman Enzo Gonzales Edward Sturm Kira Gandolfo
Cast Zelda Fitzgerald Tallulah Bankhead Ernest Hemingway F. Scott Fitzgerald
Charlotte Weinman Gayane Kaligian Sam Regueros Charlie Berger
A Note from the Director Who is allowed to own their stories? Zelda Fitzgerald - writer, painter, and ballet dancer - wrestled with this question long before us, and Charlotte’s play examines her journey to fully own her story and stand against those who would rewrite it. We know a great deal about these historical figures’ lives; their 1920s mystique still permeates our fundamental understanding of U.S. 2020s culture. In Salamander, Zelda, F. Scott, Tallulah, and Ernest struggle to claim authority over their stories and grapple with the reality of their relationships, a reality incongruous with the past (and unfortunately present) accepted expression of romantic relationships. The Salamander and the Impediment sets out to meaningfully queer history: to take what people said about their love lives seriously. While we strive to fully restore stories to their rightful owners, we need to re-examine the stories we’re given to see the living, loving hearts of the people behind them. As Zelda herself once put it, “Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”
The New Works cycle is a four-step process dedicated to the development of new plays at Boston University School of Theatre – from cold reads all the way to fully staged productions that are supported by a director and performed for audiences. All projects presented as part of the New Works trajectory are student written, directed, designed, and performed.
Upcoming Projects Colossal
NOV 4-6 Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre | 820 Commonwealth Ave by Andrew Hinderaker | Directed by Yo-EL Cassell Presented as part of Fringe Festival 2021. Tickets $15 or free with BU ID at the door, day of performance, subject to availability.
Gone Nowhere NOV 4-14 Boston Playwrights’ Theatre [BPT] | 949 Commonwealth Ave by Daniel Blanda | Directed by Noah Putterman (CFA’22) Boston Playwrights’ Theatre and the School of Theatre present this new play written by Daniel Blanda. Tickets available through BPT.
John & Jen NOV 11-14 Jewels 2 Miller Studio Theatre 356 | 855 Commonwealth Ave Music by Andrew Lippa, lyrics by Tom Greenwald | Directed by Kevin Bradley (CFA’23) Free Admission at the door, subject to availability.
For more details, visit www.bu.edu/cfa/theatre/season