Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks sets the stage with an up-and-coming theatre company rehearsing a play about Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. As opening night approaches, Black playwright Luce is struggling with rewrites and pressure from a producer about how to frame the relationship between the third president and the woman he enslaved. Luce also stars as Sally, while Tom is played by Mike, her white romantic partner and the production’s director. The past and present collide in this electrifying exploration of artistic authenticity, history, power, and truth. Executive Artistic Director Lance Gardner makes his Marin Theatre directorial debut with this West Coast premiere.
A note from the Executive Artistic Director:
I know what a bold choice this is, and I don’t think people expect any less of me. During the company’s 2017 run of Thomas Bradshaw’s Thomas & Sally, I was here rehearsing Shakespeare in Love as an actor and experienced some of the turmoil firsthand. There was still an aura of unresolved conflict around that production when I joined the company as artistic director in 2023, and I’ve been eager to address it in the right way. I’ve never shied away from difficult topics, and there’s no better way to confront that aspect of the history of this theatre than through the art of theatre itself.
-Lance Gardner
