Patriarchs is a six-part audio drama focused on the dynamic between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams during the founding of the United States. Written by award-winning playwright Jim McGrath, the podcast stars America’s preeminent interpreter of Shakespeare Stacy Keach as Thomas Jefferson, and six-time Helen Hayes Award winner Edward Gero as John Adams. Patriarchs opens in Philadelphia at the Continental Congress in 1776 Philadelphia and concludes on Independence Day July 4, 1826.
During that 50-year span, Patriarchs chronicles the origin of our country through the most consequential relationship in American History: the friendship, rivalry, animosity, and reconciliation of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Through this lens, Patriarchs answers the hard questions about how America began, who paid the price, and what kind of republic it has become. Every scene, every argument, every confession in Patriarchs is drawn from real letters, speeches, and memoirs of the people who created this nation. The result is an intimate drama of brilliant founders who are also flawed fathers, husbands, slaveholders, and partisans.
In addition to Adams and Jefferson, the podcast includes Abigail Adams, one of the sharpest political minds of the age, whose letters slice cleanly through ego and ideology. With Sally Hemings centered not as rumor but as a speaking, thinking presence whose choices and constraints shape Jefferson’s life, Patriarchs boldly confronts the reality of slavery and sexual exploitation in the founding generation.