PRESS RELEASE: Most-Produced, Award-Winning Play Opens JAN 9, 2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 24, 2024
Contact: Kira Catanzaro, Marcom Manager
kira@6thstreetplayhouse.com
What the Constitution Means to Me
Most-Produced, Award-Winning Play Opens JAN 9, 2025
SANTA ROSA, CA (Dec. 24, 2024) – 6th Street Playhouse starts the new year by staging Pulitzer Prize Finalist Heidi Schreck’s boundary-breaking play. The playwright infuses energy into our Constitution by exploring her personal relationship with the living document. At fifteen, Heidi earned her college tuition by winning constitutional debate competitions across the United States. In this hilarious, hopeful and timely play, she resurrects her teenage self to trace the profound ways The U.S. Constitution defines and governs the lives of women, telling stories about the women in her family. Sandra Ish (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) plays the playwright, Nadia Hill (Fences) plays the Debater and Keith Baker (Beautiful) plays the Legionnaire. Directed by Bronwen Shears (Topdog/Underdog), performances run on the Monroe Stage January 9 – 26, 2025.
“This play is funny and poignant,” says Shears “and, hopefully, you’ll leave the theatre thinking about our current state and the future.”
What the Constitution Means to Me takes place in a rural town’s American Legion Hall with Heidi inviting the audience into her history as a girl of 15 in 1989 crossing the country to compete in debates about the Constitution to win American Legion scholarships for college. Weaving together the stories of 4 generations of women in her family, she traces the relationship between the generations and how the Constitution shaped their lives. A lively debate with a local high school student and the always present moderator offer alternate perspectives as the character of Heidi navigates her personal relationship with the text.
Schreck’s other plays Grand Concourse, Creature, and There Are No More Big Secrets have also been produced in NYC and nationwide. Screenwriting credits include I Love Dick, Billions, Nurse Jackie, Dispatches from Elsewhere and she has signed on as writer and executive producer of She-Ra with Amazon MGM Studios. Schreck is the recipient of three Obie Awards, a Drama Desk Award, a Theatre World Award, the Horton Foote Playwriting Award and the Hull-Warriner Award from the Dramatists Guild. She was also awarded Smithsonian Magazine’s 2019 American Ingenuity Award, for her work in the Performing Arts.
In addition to being a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Drama, What the Constitution Means to Me had a banner year, winning the Obie Award for Best New American Play, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play and the Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best New Play. Additionally, it was nominated for two Tonys, including Best Play, and two Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Play. It is the currently most-produced play in the U.S.
What the Constitution Means to Me premiered off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop in September of 2018 and then opened on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre on March 31, 2019. Initially set for a 12-week engagement, the Broadway production extended twice and fully recouped its investment, shattering box office records with a 24-week run.
The Cast of What the Constitution Means to Me is as follows:
Heidi – Sandra Ish
Legionnaire – Keith Baker
Debater – Nadia Hill
January 9 – 26, 2025
Runs: Thursdays—Sundays (see website for details)
Run Time: Approximately 90 minutes. No intermission.
Tickets cost $29 – $47.95 (including all applicable fees) and are available online at 6thStreetPlayhouse.com or by calling the Box Office at (707) 523-4185.