Sally & Tom

Sally & Tom is running at The Kleberg at Zach Theater from July 22 through August 23, a regional premiere of the play by Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks. It's a sharp, funny play-within-a-play that turns American mythmaking on its head, and it's playing right in the heart of Austin.

The story follows a scrappy contemporary theater company called Good Company as they rehearse The Pursuit of Happiness, a historical drama about the mythologized relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. The action moves back and forth between the rehearsal room and 1790s America, and as the messy process of putting the show together unravels, it brings out contradictions, personal tensions, and questions that don't have easy answers. It's a double-layered thing: you're watching a company struggle with a play that's itself struggling with history.

Parks is known for how she handles history and language, and this one is no different. The production is being staged as a regional premiere, and the people behind it have said it asks audiences to reconsider whose stories get preserved and whose are left untold, and to think critically about the stories we tell and the world we want to make. It's the kind of play that stays with you after the curtain goes down, especially if you're interested in how we talk about the past.

Tickets run from $29 to $96, and the show runs through August 23, so there's plenty of time to catch it over the summer. If you've been wanting to see something that's more of a conversation than a lecture, this is a good place to start.