Evening.
It’s snowing lightly.
BOSEMAN SALVAGE JUNIOR appears.
He’s bundled — puffy coat, hat, gloves and boots — and shoveling snow with purpose
And a kind of grace.
Slide.
Toss.
Slide.
Toss.
Again
And again
And again.
It’s a ritual.
A meditation.
Almost imperceptibly
It becomes a dance
A heightened expression of interior monologue
And then JUNIOR is shoveling again.
Slide.
Toss.
Again
And again.
Almost as if he were praying.
The Salvagers
3W, 2M
Meet the Bosemans Salvage: 37-year-old Senior and 23-year-old Junior, at odds under the same roof during a snowy Chicago winter. Their icy relationship is further strained as potential romances for both father and son compel them to reckon with the past.
Productions
World Premiere, Yale Rep, New Haven, 2023: dir. Mikael Burke
Press
“…a tremendous first production of an engrossing new play about the importance of communication and understanding.”
--Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant
“…gripping and profound.”
--Fred Sokol, Talkin’ Broadway
”Rivers writes his characters with compassion and a refreshing joy for complexity. He gives each character the space for us to understand that each of them is acting from a place of wanting to improve the situation they’re in for everyone, even if they don’t always know how to do it. As the drama among the Salvages comes to a peak, we sympathize with them all, as people trying to, well, salvage what they can from a difficult past, and maybe build something better from the pieces. The note of bruised hope at the end of The Salvagers feels well earned, as does its quiet pitch for empathy, especially for the ones we know the best, for all their flaws, and hold the closest.”
--Brian Slattery, New Haven Independent
“[a] merciful new drama…”
--Laura Collins-Hughes, New York Times