Just weeks ahead of the United States’ 250th anniversary, Round House Theatre announces 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. More information and tickets here.
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 theater 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.
Sally & Tom runs May 27 – June 28, 2026, at Round House Theatre, 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, MD, one block from Wisconsin Avenue and the Bethesda station on Metro’s Red Line. For tickets, call the box office at 240.644.1100 or purchase online.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Suzan-Lori Parks (Playwright) is a multi-award-winning American writer and musician. She is the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Topdog/Underdog which recently enjoyed its 20th anniversary Broadway revival and won the 2023 Tony Award. Other notable plays include Sally & Tom (2024), Plays for the Plague (Drama Desk Best Music, 2023), and Father Comes Home from the Wars (2014). Parks’s first marathon writing “diary play” 365 Days/365 Plays — in which she wrote a play a day for an entire year — was produced at more than 700 theaters worldwide, creating one of the largest grassroots collaborations in theater history. A MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, her novel Getting Mother’s Body is published by Random House. She also writes extensively for the screen — most recently, as the showrunner/executive producer/head writer for the television show Genius: Aretha. She is an alumna of New Dramatists and of Mount Holyoke College where she studied creative writing with James Baldwin, who encouraged Parks to begin writing for the theater. In her spare time, Parks also writes songs and fronts her band SLP & The Joyful Noise.
Timothy Douglas (Director) returns “home” to Round House, where he has staged the U.S. premiere of Nine Night, as well as Gem of the Ocean, Father Comes Home From the Wars, Two Trains Running, Permanent Collection, A Lesson Before Dying, and performed the role of Teacher in Small Mouth Sounds. DC-area credits include As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, and Richard III at Folger Theatre; The Color Purple (Helen Hayes award for Best Musical), Where the Mountains Meets the Sea, and Spunk at Signature Theatre; Nina Simone: Four Women, Disgraced, and King Hadley II at Arena Stage; Fences at Ford’s Theatre; Long Way Down at The Kennedy Center; Proof at Olney Theatre Center; and projects at Studio Theatre, Theatre Alliance, and Woolly Mammoth. Regional and international credits include productions for 24 Hour Plays/Broadway, Berkeley Rep, Boston Lyric Opera, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Classic Stage Company, Denver Center, Downstage (New Zealand), Great Theatre of China, Guthrie, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Mark Taper Forum, McCarter, Nationaltheatret (Norway), New Orleans Opera, NIDA (Australia), Red Bull, South Coast Rep, Sundance Theatre Institute/MENA (Morocco), Yale Rep, and many others. MFA: Yale School of Drama.
CAST INFORMATION (alphabetical)
Josiah Bania (Mike/Tom) is thrilled to return to Round House for this production, having previously performed here in Ironbound. Select credits include: The Oresteia (Shakespeare Theatre Company); Ironbound (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Geffen Playhouse); Archduke (Mark Taper Forum); Fingersmith (American Repertory Theatre); and The Way of the World (Dorset Theater Festival), among others. TV credits include New Amsterdam, The Good Wife, The Mysteries of Laura, and Leverage. MFA: Yale School of Drama.
Ro Boddie (Kwame/James) is thrilled to be returning to Round House. Previous Round House credits include Topdog/Underdog, The Mountaintop, Radio Golf, The Tempest, A Boy and His Soul, and “Master Harold” … and the Boys. DC credits include The World to Come at Woolly Mammoth; The American Five at Ford’s Theatre; Paradise Blue, Pipeline, Three Sisters, No Sisters, and Dirt at Studio Theatre; Comedy of Errors at STC; Tempestuous Elements at Arena Stage; and The Agitators at Mosaic Theater. Off-Broadway credits include Socrates at The Public and Seize the King at Classical Theatre of Harlem. Select TV credits include Godfather of Harlem, Run the World, and The Good Wife. Ro is a proud alum of UNCSA ’09.
Renea S. Brown (Maggie/Mary) is excited to return to Round House Theatre! Previous Round House credits include Moxie in Sojourners, Camae in The Mountaintop, Dede in Nollywood Dreams, and Assistant Director on The Tempest. DC credits include Metamorphoses and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Folger Theatre; Covenant and Furlough’s Paradise at Theatre Alliance; The American Five at Ford’s Theatre; Tempestuous Elements and Change Agent at Arena Stage; The Tempest and Macbeth at Shakespeare Theatre Company; Love Factually at the Kennedy Center; Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth at Chesapeake Shakespeare Theatre; and Macbeth and Cymbeline at Theatre Prometheus. TV/Film: Godfather of Harlem (MGM+), Law and Order (NBC), Water in a Broken Glass and Beauty’s Keeper (Amazon). MFA: Academy of Classical Acting.
Kimberly Gilbert (Ginger/Patsy) last appeared at Round House Theatre in What the Constitution Means to Me and Jennifer Who Is Leaving. Other Round House credits include Oslo, The Book of Will, Angels in America, Uncle Vanya, The Lyons, and The Beauty Queen of Leenane. Recent credits include Appropriate at Olney Theatre Center, Cyrano at Taffety Punk, Marjorie Prime at Prologue, POTUS at The Arden (Philadelphia), and A Christmas Carol at Ford’s. Kimberly has been in the DC Theaterverse since the year 2000, where she has been fortunate enough to play on the stage of Round House, as well as Ford’s Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, The Kennedy Center, Folger Theatre, Studio Theatre, Theater J, Forum, Mosaic, Source, Metro Stage, Spooky Action, Prologue, and, most often, Woolly Mammoth and Taffety Punk Theatres, both of which she is a proud Company Member. Kimberly is a graduate of STC Academy.
Jamar Jones (Devon/Nathan) is returning to Round House Theatre after last being seen in The Inheritance, Parts One and Two. DC credits include Akira Kurosawa Explains His Movies and Yogurt… at Woolly Mammoth. Regional credits include Blues for an Alabama Sky at Seattle Rep; Fat Ham, Much Ado about Nothing, Emma, The Legend of Georgia McBride, A Wrinkle in Time, Hamlet, and The Skin of Our Teeth at PlayMakers Repertory Company; Black Like Me at Chautauqua Theater Company; Toni Stone at Playhouse on Park; Fires in the Mirror (2022 RTCC Award, Best Lead Performance/Play) and Passing Strange at Firehouse Theater; An Octoroon (2019 RTCC Award, Best Actor/Play) and Topdog/Underdog at TheatreLab; and Fences at Virginia Rep. Television includes Law & Order. MFA: UNC at Chapel Hill.
Charlotte Kim (Scout/Polly) is thrilled to be back at Round House after making her debut in the reading of Marble Rooftop earlier this year. Other DC credits include Young Americans at 1st Stage, The Figs and Klecksography at Rorschach Theatre, and Cake Eaters with The Welders. Other regional credits include The Wolves at Southampton Cultural Center. Charlotte is also a member of The Moon Girls, a creative trio performing their original irreverent comedies around the DMV. BA: George Washington University.
Lilian Oben (Luce/Sally) is an actor, writer, and educator based in New York City. Previous Round House Theatre credits include Nine Night (Helen Hayes Nomination, Outstanding Lead Actor). Other DC-area credits include Murder on the Orient Express at Everyman Theatre; The Second Shepherds’ Play at Folger Theatre; and The Crucible at Olney Theatre Center. Regional credits include Joe Turner’s Come and Gone at Indiana Repertory Theatre and Syracuse Stage; Primary Trust at McCarter Theatre and Cincinnati Playhouse; and Intimate Apparel at Orlando Shakespeare. Film credits include The Noel Diaries (Netflix) and The Harvest. Lilian’s writer/playwright credits include New York Times “Modern Love” print/ podcast editions; Now Casting; Aether; and Olympus – Perchance to Sleep, written in iambic pentameter and a 2023 Semi-Finalist in Red Bull Theater’s Short Play Festival.
Colin Sphar (Geoff; Mike understudy) is making his Round House Theatre debut with Sally & Tom. Colin lives in Chicago, where he appeared in the U.S. premiere of Posh at Steep Theatre as well as the world premiere of Luna Gale at Goodman Theatre and its West Coast premiere at Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles. Other regional theatre includes We Are Proud to Present… at Theater Emory; Dial M for Murder at Theatre Squared; The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley at Capital Stage; Romeo and Juliet at Southwest Shakespeare; and work with Steppenwolf, Victory Gardens, Teatro Vista, Red Orchid, TimeLine, Primary Stages, and Chicago Shakespeare Theater. TV credits include Chicago P.D. and Chicago Med. Colin trained at The Theatre School at DePaul University.
UNDERSTUDIES (alphabetical)
Janine Baumgardner (Scout/Polly and Ginger/Patsy understudy) is excited to join the company of Sally & Tom! Favorite DC credits include The Queen’s Ball: A Bridgerton Experience with Netflix/Shondaland/Fever; Twelfth Night (Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Ensemble), Romeo and Juliet, and many other productions at Synetic Theater; Fiddler on the Roof at Olney Theatre Center; Astro Boy and the God of Comics (Helen Hayes Nomination for Outstanding Ensemble and Production) and Monstress at Flying V Theatre; Jardín salvaje (Native Gardens) at GALA Hispanic Theatre; Squeakers and Mr. Gumdrop at Arts on the Horizon; and The Rite of Spring at Pointless Theatre Co. Janine is also a personal trainer, choreographer, and mom.
John Geoffrion (Geoff/Cooper understudy) is delighted to make his Round House Theatre debut. DC credits include Arabian Nights and Good Woman of Setzuan at Constellation Theatre; Cherry Orchard, Edward III, and Kafka’s Dick at WSC/Avant Bard; Sink the Belgrano!, Guilt, and War of the Worlds at Scena Theatre; and The African Company Presents Richard III at Howard University. Regional credits include Our Town at Everyman Theatre; Amadeus at New Rep; I Capture the Castle at Greater Boston Stage; Gross Indecency (Best Actor, IRNE & BWW Boston) and Arcadia at Bad Habit; Art, Loot, and Three Days of Rain at Hub Theatre Boston; Our Town at Peterborough Players; and Stones In His Pockets and Candida at Acadia Rep. MFA: Catholic University.
Tyler “T” Lang (Kwame/James and Devon/Nathan understudy) is thrilled to make his Round House Theatre debut. T is a Chicago-born actor, playwright, producer, and singer currently based in the DMV and studying at Howard University. He has worked with La MaMa ETC, VOCA, Cara Mia Theatre Co., Kitchen Dog Theater, Shakespeare Dallas, Junior Players, Echo Theatre, and Soul Rep Theatre. Most recently, his original play Changes played Off-Broadway in NYC with Howard and CUA collaborators. He was also the first Howard playwright selected for La MaMa’s International Umbria in Spoleto, Italy, and will soon appear on HBO Max’s Evil Lives Here.
Nicole Ruthmarie (Luce/Sally and Maggie/Mary understudy) is thrilled to return to Round House Theatre! Round House credits include A Jumping Off Point (understudy). Other DC-area credits include Bell Wringer (Capital Fringe Best Musical Winner), Use All Available Doors, and The H Twins with Pinky Swear Productions; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 46 Plays for America’s First Ladies, and School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play at NextStop Theatre Company; Heartland and Unprotected with Pipeline Playwrights; Oleanna at Perisphere Theater; Cracking Zeus and Can’t Complain, I’ve Seen It All at Spooky Action; A Comedy of Errors with PG Shakespeare in the Parks; and The Trojan Women Project, Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2, and Henry V with Brave Spirits Theatre.
