CAST OF CHARACTERS

KARYN TRAUT, a playwright and adjunct assistant professor of social medicine in her late fifties with long, naturally graying hair pulled back in a single braid. She wears round, oversized eyeglasses, loose fitting clothes, and a long flowing scarf.

THOMAS TRAUT, professor of biochemistry and husband of Karyn Traut for 38 years. He, too, is in his late fifties, and he has graying hair, a mustache, and oversized eyeglasses.

[Curtain up.]

ACT I: The Media and the DNA Test

Time: November 1998

aryn Traut’s day begins as usual. She gets up, pours herself a cup of coffee, and sits down at a small kitchen table. Then she starts jotting down notes on a notepad, brainstorming a character for a play. Her husband, Thomas Traut, walks in carrying the newspaper, sits down at the table across from his wife, and begins reading.

"Take a look at this would you," Thomas says as he turns the paper around and places it in front of his wife.

Karyn can’t believe her eyes. There in black and white is the headline "DNA Test Pinpoints Jefferson Offspring. President Fathered Child with Slave Hemings." The article goes on to tell about a DNA test and, unknown to Karyn at the time, erroneously reports that blood for the test was extracted from living descendents of Jefferson’s brother. It correctly reports that blood was also extracted from male descendents of Sally Hemings’ last child, Eston, as well as from a group of blacks whom many think also descended from Jefferson. (This last group — the Woodsons — is ruled out.)

"This story makes it sound like they’ve proven Thomas Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings’ children," Karyn says. "There’s not even a mention here of his brother Randolph as the possible father."

A week later, Karyn is further frustrated when she reads the original article in the journal Nature, which had been scooped by the American press. Here, it states that blood was actually drawn from descendents of Thomas Jefferson’s uncle, Field Jefferson, but again, doesn’t even mention Randolph —  in fact, leaves him off the family tree.