{"id":598,"date":"2026-06-22T16:39:53","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T16:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=598"},"modified":"2026-06-22T16:39:53","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T16:39:53","slug":"in-this-d-c-area-play-sally-hemings-is-given-a-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=598","title":{"rendered":"In This D.C. Area Play, Sally Hemings Is Given a Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Before she portrayed Sally Hemings on stage, Renea Brown took a visit to Monticello and found herself frustrated.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere is so much information on how there is very little information about her, really \u2013 [it] just didn\u2019t sit well with me,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n

It was clear from the tour that residents of the house had to know about the relationship between the enslaved woman and Thomas Jefferson. It is believed to have started when she was as young as 14 and he was in his 40s, and it lasted for decades. So where were the letters? The gifts? Were they all destroyed?<\/p>\n

When Brown stood in one of the rooms that Hemings was thought to inhabit, she felt the space didn\u2019t quite convey the weight of what happened to her. \u201cIt felt very much like a facade,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Now Brown stars in \u201cSally and Tom,\u201d which runs through Sunday at Round House Theatre in Bethesda and attempts to fill this historical gap. Premiering in 2022 and running off-Broadway in 2024, it\u2019s written by Suzan-Lori Parks, a celebrated playwright known for stories that show how America\u2019s past shapes its present.<\/p>\n

\u201cSally & Tom\u201d is the latest in a long line of artistic works about this relationship. Most of them explore the contradictions of the founding father whose \u201call men are created equal\u201d proclamation turns 250 this year, and give voice to the woman who was forced to bow to his desires.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a quote that I love: \u2018I don\u2019t know this for a fact, but I know it\u2019s true,\u2019\u201d said Timothy Douglas, who directs the Bethesda production. \u201cWe have Thomas Jefferson facts, but with Sally Hemings, Suzan-Lori Parks tells the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Jefferson-Hemings relationship was hazily reported by the press in Jefferson\u2019s lifetime<\/u><\/span>, but awareness has grown in recent decades through books such as Fawn M. Brodie\u2019s 1974 Jefferson biography and Annette Gordon-Reed\u2019s Pulitzer-winning book \u201cThe Hemingses of Monticello\u201d from 2008.<\/p>\n

The foundation that runs Monticello acknowledges Jefferson fathered at least six of Hemings\u2019 children, and in 2018 expanded its exhibits<\/u><\/span> to include more material on Hemings and her family.<\/p>\n

The playwright Sandra Seaton has explored Hemings in three different stage works, including a solo show in which she plays Hemings and tries to persuade Jefferson to free their children.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe biggest challenge I suppose was thinking [through] the argument about whether she could have her own agency, whether because she was a slave did she have any kind of power on her own to create a life, make choices,\u201d Seaton said. \u201cI think the Sally Hemings, hopefully, that I created \u2014 I show that she does, that she is powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arguably the most notable take on the pair came in the play \u201cThomas and Sally,\u201d which premiered at the Marin Theatre Company in California in 2017. That show attempts to speak to the present by having a descendant of Hemings recount the relationship<\/u><\/span> to her college roommate. But when it premiered, its depiction of the relationship sparked protests<\/u><\/span>, angry comments online and an open letter released by 13 Black artists and signed by 1,600 people demanding that the venue apologize for what they viewed as an irresponsibly romanticized portrayal.<\/p>\n

The Marin Theatre Company mounted \u201cSally & Tom\u201d this fall, revisiting the topic that had once mired the organization in controversy. Executive artistic director Lance Gardner, who directed the production, said it wasn\u2019t meant to be a healing or an apology \u2014 he believes the two works are in conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhereas \u2018Thomas and Sally\u2019 created this tension in our artistic and theatrical community, \u2018Sally & Tom\u2019 sort of musically resolved that tension,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gardner said one thing he likes about \u201cSally & Tom\u201d is \u201cacknowledging that life is complicated and we don\u2019t really know why we love people and maybe we don\u2019t even know what love is, and maybe in these situations, in power imbalances, maybe there\u2019s no such thing as love.\u201d<\/p>\n

The play explores these tensions through a unique framing device: A contemporary theater company is staging a play about Jefferson and Hemings, and the plot bounces between their rehearsed scenes and their offstage lives. The performers taking on the two main roles also contend with a stormy offstage romance and an unseen backer who wants to cut a particularly explosive speech by Sally\u2019s brother James.<\/p>\n

Parks told American Theatre<\/u><\/span> in 2022 that the work is \u201can opportunity to develop our skills at having a nuanced conversation about deep and perhaps difficult things.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Bethesda, Brown especially enjoys getting to perform a climactic scene in which Sally finally gets to state how she really feels, including the line, \u201cThe horror of him wanting me keeps me from other horrors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like if you were to picture Sally carrying a trash bag and you just stuff all of this hate, you stuff all of these high emotions into this bag, eventually you\u2019ve got to take the bag out because it\u2019s going to burst,\u201d Brown said of the scene.<\/p>\n

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She added that, ultimately, \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s love \u2013 it\u2019s \u2018how do I survive?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Sally & Tom\u2019 at Round House Theatre is the latest in a long line of artistic works that examine Hemings\u2019 relationship with Thomas Jefferson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metro"],"yoast_head":"\nIn This D.C. Area Play, Sally Hemings Is Given a Voice - Modern Home Journals<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=598\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In This D.C. 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