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Arts Are Us Update: The Mistress of Monticello On the heels of the very successful Sherlock Homes: The Countess, The Arts Are Us Players and The Blue Door Cafe in Downtown Sherman, Texas are in the process of preparing a dramatized version of the controversial story of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings titled, The Mistress of Monticello. The rumors have been flying for over 200 years about our third president's possible liason with his beautiful slave mistress. In 1998, DNA testing revealed that President Jefferson (or a Jefferson) fathered at least one of Sally Heming's children. Strong circumstantial evidence has caused the Monticello Foundation, who owns and maintains the historical landmark home of Thomas Jefferson, to conclude that the author of The Declaration of Independence possibly did father all six of Heming's children. The Players are taking a sensitive approach to this production. Our research is based in part on content from Annette Gordon-Reed's Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings an American Controversy; The fictional novel (based on fact) by Barbara Chase-Riboud, Sally Hemings; Information gathered from Monticello.org, the official website of the Monticello Foundation; and the writings of Thomas Jefferson. The end result is a text that reflects a moving love story and two people who were victims of their era. The Arts Are Us Players take pride in bringing to life this mystery in time, The Mistress of Monticello. "If the story of the Sally Hemings liaison be true,as I believe it is, it represents not scandalous debauchery with an innocent slave victim... but a serious passion that brought Jefferson and the slave woman much private happiness over a period lasting thirty-eight years." Fawn M. Brodie Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, 1974
The Arts Are Us Players and The Blue Door Cafe present a mystery in time...
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 The Story of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings "The Mistress of Monticello"
"I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world, and procure them its praise." -Thomas Jefferson -
"I cannot live without books" -Thomas Jefferson-
The Blue Door Cafe 219 Travis Street Sherman, Texas The Blue Door Cafe features finely crafted food. From excellent steaks to creative vegetable dishes, The Blue Door offers a varied menu for the decerning palate. Open from 5 to 9 p.m. M-Thurs. 5-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday for dinner. 219 Travis St., Sherman. 893-5053.
"He (Thomas Jefferson) enjoys his dinner well, taking with meat a large proportion of vegetables." -Daniel Webster-
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Click here to visit the Monticello on-line gift shop The relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings has traditionally been accepted by black Americans, but lay uneasily in the American historic subconscious from the days it was first described in the press by Jefferson's enemies while he was president. The story was later vehemently denied by white historians (and, of course, by his white descendants) despite much strong circumstantial evidence to the contrary. There was, too, the wide-spread and well-documented custom in the slave states of such master/slave-woman liaisons, which were illegal in Virginia and elsewhere. Despite all this, Jefferson's modern biographers, with the exception of Fawn Brodie, continued to deny the story. When Jefferson in Paris first appeared in 1995 it was condemned by American and British newspapers for supposedly playing fast and loose with the historical record. However, since then, proof of Jefferson's paternity of at least one of Heming's children has emerged from DNA studies and the story at last seems to have found widespread public and scholarly acceptance. James Ivory, Director, Jefferson in Paris (1995) Click here to visit Monticello: The Home of Thomas Jefferson |
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