What the Constitution Means to Me

A SAMUEL FRENCH, INC. TITLE

What the Constitution Means to Me

Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy  /  1w, 1m, 1girl(s)

Heidi Schreck’s hilarious, hopeful and achingly human play breathes new life into the U.S. Constitution and imagines how it will shape the next generation of Americans.

Image: 2019 Broadway Production (Joan Marcus)

What the Constitution Means to Me

  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    1w, 1m, 1girl(s)
  • Duration
    Duration
    90 minutes
  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Adult, Teen (Age 14-18)
Accolades
Accolades
  • Finalist! 2019 Pulitzer Prize
    Winner! 2019 Obie Award, Best New American Play
    Winner! 2019 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, Best American Play
    Winner! 2019 Off-Broadway Alliance Award, Best New Play
    Nominee: Two 2019 Tony Awards, including Best Play
    Nominee: Two 2019 Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Play

Details

Summary

Playwright Heidi Schreck’s boundary-breaking play breathes new life into the U.S. Constitution and imagines how it will shape the next generation of Americans. Fifteen-year-old Heidi earned her college tuition by winning Constitutional debate competitions across the United States. In this hilarious, hopeful and achingly human new play, she resurrects her teenage self in order to trace the profound relationship between four generations of women and the founding document that shaped their lives.

History
What the Constitution Means to Me premiered off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop on September 12, 2018. The play opened on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre on March 31, 2019. Initially announced for a 12-week engagement, the Broadway production extended twice and fully recouped its investment, shattering box office records, for a total run of 24 weeks. Following Broadway, What the Constitution Means to Me played a record-breaking limited engagement run at the Eisenhower Theater at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., as well as two sit-down engagements in Los Angeles and Chicago before halting performances due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The national tour of What the Constitution Means to Me will resume in September 2021.

HEIDI
MIKE
ROSDELY*

*Can be played by a non-binary teen.

The role of the teen should be played by a female or non-binary teen actor. 

  • Time Period Contemporary, Present Day
  • Setting An American Legion hall in a small, rural town. The present and 1989.
  • Features Contemporary Costumes/Street Clothes
  • Additional Features Audience Participation/Interactive
  • Duration 90 minutes

Media

“Not just the best play to open on Broadway so far this season, but also the most important.” – The New York Times

“Endearingly funny and deeply affecting... It would be hard to identify a work for the theater with its finger more on the pulse of America right now.” – Peter Marks, The Washington Post

“Uproariously funny, wrenchingly moving, critically challenging and politically inspiring.” – David Cole, The New York Review of Books

“A charming and incisive analysis of gender and racial biases inherent to the U.S. Constitution that examines how this living document could evolve to fit modern America.” – 2019 Pulitzer Prize Committee

What the Constitution Means to Me is one of the things we always say we want theater to be: an act of civic engagement. It restarts an argument many of us forgot we even needed to have.” – Jesse Green, The New York Times

"Heidi Schreck's fiercely urgent and soul-restoring What the Constitution Means to Me keeps uncannily in step with the times.” – David Cote, The Observer

Videos

  • What the Constitution Means to Me: Prime Video Trailer youtube thumbnail

    What the Constitution Means to Me: Prime Video Trailer

  • Heidi Schreck on What the Constitution Means to Me youtube thumbnail

    Heidi Schreck on What the Constitution Means to Me

  • What the Constitution Means to Me: Berkeley Rep Promo youtube thumbnail

    What the Constitution Means to Me: Berkeley Rep Promo

  • What the Constitution Means to Me: 2019 Tony Awards youtube thumbnail

    What the Constitution Means to Me: 2019 Tony Awards

Photos

  • What the Constitution Means to Me

    Image: 2019 Broadway Production (Joan Marcus)

  • What the Constitution Means to Me

    Image: 2019 Broadway Production (Joan Marcus)

Licensing & Materials

  • Minimum Fee: £85 per performance plus VAT when applicable.

Scripts

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Authors

Heidi Schreck

Heidi Schreck is a writer and performer living in Brooklyn. Her critically-acclaimed play What the Constitution Means to Me played an extended, sold-out run on Broadway in 2019, and was nominated for two Tony Awards. It had subsequent runs at the Kennedy Center in Washington ...
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