Round House Theatre set for Sally & Tom
Just weeks ahead of the United States’ 250th anniversary, Round House Theatre is set for the timely regional premiere of Sally & Tom, a bold, funny, and deeply thought-provoking play by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. Directed by Timothy Douglas and featuring a stellar cast—Josiah Bania, Ro Boddie, Renea S. Brown, Kimberly Gilbert, Jamar Jones, Charlotte Kim, Lilian Oben, and Colin Sphar—the production will run May 27–June 28, 2026, and will close out the season.
Sally & Tom is not a history play; it’s a play about how history gets told. It’s a dark and witty dramedy that alternates between 1790s Monticello and a present-day rehearsal room as a scrappy theatre company stages a play about Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. But as the rehearsal process unfolds, the boundaries between past and present blur, exposing tensions, contradictions, and uncomfortable truths about race, power, and the act of storytelling itself.
"I intentionally chose to program this play alongside the nation’s 250th anniversary because it felt like the right moment to bring a story that poses timely and urgent questions to our audiences who have shown us they are eager to be challenged and to engage with bold, thought-provoking work,” says Round House Theatre Artistic Director Ryan Rilette. “Sally & Tom invites us to examine the past and interrogates both the narratives we’ve inherited and the ones we continue to tell. By drawing connections between 1790 and today, it explores whose stories are told, whose are left out, and what responsibility artists have when revisiting history.”
The cast is joined by an impressive creative team, which includes Scenic Designer Tony Cisek, Costume Designer Danielle Preston, Wig Designer LeShawn Melton, Lighting Designer Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, Sound Designer Matthew M. Nielson, Projection Designer Delaney Bray, Intimacy/Fight Director Sierra Young, Choreographer Dane Figueroa Edidi, Dramaturg Naysan Mojgani, Casting Director Sarah Cooney, Production Stage Manager Che Wernsman, and Production Assistant Jay Dews.
“This production isn’t just a historical look-back; it’s a necessary confrontation. The play interrogates the "pursuit of happiness" and asks us to look closely at who that promise was actually written for. It’s a story told with incredible humor and a raw, biting ferocity that forces us to sit with the contradictions of our own history. I’m looking forward to inviting our audiences into that complexity and seeing where the conversation takes us,” says director Timothy Douglas.
Tickets may be purchased by calling 240.644.1100 or by ordering online at RoundHouseTheatre.org. Round House Theatre is located at 4545 East-West Highway, one block from Wisconsin Avenue and the Bethesda station on Metro’s Red Line.