Most people don’t think about how the U.S. Constitution affects their daily lives. Playwright Heidi Schreck – who shone in Constitutional debate competitions in her youth—developed a close personal relationship with that founding document. The result is her acclaimed play What the Constitution Means to Me. International City Theatre will present the moving, funny and yes, educational piece running now through Sunday, May 19 at the company’s home in the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center (for details, see below).
Inspired by her experiences starting at age 15 when she traveled the country taking part in speech contests sponsored by the American Legion to earn scholarship money for college, Schreck’s play digs deep into the document’s beauty and contradictions. She explores both her intimate personal history and family history to methodically expose the biases and omissions baked into the Constitution.
“I really think the title is misleading,” adds desai. “The play is not dry and stuffy. It’s not a dull lecture and it doesn’t hammer you over the head.”
“It starts out kind of like a civic lesson discussing the Constitution and amendments,” says Kelley Dorney, who plays the teen and adult Heidi. “Then it’s the best history class you’ve ever taken that turns into something completely unexpected. And it’s all so good.”
The touchingly autobiographical play opened on Broadway in 2019. The Obie and New York Drama Critics Circle award-winning play was a Pulitzer Prize finalist with Tony nominations for Best Play and Best Actress. It’s now the most-produced play in America this season. The Washington Post wrote that seeing the play “is an act of patriotism.”
Now Is The Time
desai first saw the show in New York in 2019. She took her assistant who “balked a little. But she loved it and is excited we’re doing it now,” desai says. “It took longer than we expected to get the rights, but the timing is significant. It’s an election year, and our county is so polarized. We want to do whatever we can to remind ourselves of our democracy’s fragility and what’s at stake. That’s why I wanted to do it.”
Reflecting on the divisive state of affairs in the country at one point in the play, Heidi says crying “is just the appropriate response to everything right now.” desai relates talking with a theatre board member telling him “I would never choose a play that divided us further. This play offers a fresh perspective and challenges us to reexamine our core values, which is more important than ever this year,” says desai.
Re-reading the play again caused desai to ask, “will young people value democracy and what kind of country do young people want to live in?” She’s talking to local school districts about supplying tickets to high-school students near or at voting age “to make the subject matter real for them. Arts and education are my passion, and this play fits perfectly with our mission.”
A Subject Close To Her Heart
Her years of debate experience, research and practicing with her dad gave Schreck the background to construct a play that discusses the Constitution with all its flaws and why we have amendments. (She’s even able to recite a few.) “Look at what we went through trying to guarantee the right to vote and abolish slavery,” says desai. “And then it was just for Black men.”
The play resurrects Schreck’s teenage and present self to trace the profound relationship between four generations of women in her family and the impact of the founding document on their lives. And how it’s influenced the lives of all women.
She discusses the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the ninth’s amendment’s due process clause and how it helped make birth control legal for single women. The play includes actual transcripts where justices are clearly uneasy discussing something that makes them so uncomfortable. In another case where police failed a mother, the justices are heard hung up on the word “shall.”
The Right Actor
The construction of the play, explaining the Constitution and telling stories in the first half and becoming a debater in the second half, requires the actor to play Heidi and then herself. “She has to be comfortable talking to the audience, and do improv,” says desai. The audience gets a key role in the proceedings.
Photo by Kayte Deioma
Plus, there’s a lot of dialogue. It’s almost a one woman play, with Tom Trudgeon as a Legionnaire and more and Shelia Correa as a young debater.
Dorney opened ICT’s The Andrews Brothers in 2020, just before the pandemic shut everything down. “I spent a lot of act two interacting with the audience,” says Dorney. “caryn and casting director Michael Donovan were pleased with my comfort level in front of an audience. Michael sent me the script and we had lunch and that was it. I’m so grateful they thought of me.”
Following are excerpts from my interview with Dorney about taking on the powerful role.
What’s It Like Playing The Actual Playwright?
Her words are so powerful. I think people will go from laughing to crying in the same scene.
Slipping into her character is like slipping on a second skin. As an actor I can empathize and take on what she feels. I have not had the same experiences she has; I’ve been extremely lucky. It’s an honor to tell her story and I feel lucky to be trusted to tell this story.
She makes it easy to inhabit her shoes like when she talks about things her grandmother was able to do for her children in spite of the abuse in a violent marriage. There is so much good in the world. We have to choose to do it every day and make the choice to protect friends, mothers, sisters and brothers. It’s such a moving part of the show seeing the ways that a person so beaten down manages to still do good for her family. She couldn’t protect them against her husband but did the things she could do.
What Where Your Challenges In Learning The Part?
Photo by Kayte Deioma
Well, it is a lot. I started working on it a while ago. I set out to memorize the first part in three pages a day. At least in the debate section we can glance at index cards. At the end, we even get to extemporize.
I also researched a lot of the historic figures she mentions in the play like leaders of the civil rights movement like Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Height, Rosa Parks and Bayard Rustin.
How Do You Relate To Heidi?
In the debate section there’s not a big difference. I took part in Constitution speech contests sponsored by the DAR in Plano, Texas where I grew up. My mother didn’t save my speech just like Heidi’s mom didn’t save hers. And we both used the same famous quote from A Man for All Seasons.
We also both have beloved stuffed animals. Heidi’s story about hers is one of the show’s highlights.
What Have You Learned?
We forget about the Constitution. It’s so ingrained into our daily lives that we don’t think about what it is and is not doing for us. We either don’t know better or are complacent and deal with what our lives are. It’s a document meant to protect us, and it’s not doing a great job. But it’s all we have right now and so we have to use it the best way we can.
I also learned little known fact like the government forcibly sterilizing women of color and indigenous women.
There are also important facts. When the play was written, the statistic was that one in four girls would be sexually abused by the time they are adults. Now it’s one in three.
International City Theatre performances are in the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center’s Beverly O’Neill Theater, 330 E. Seaside Way, Long Beach. Performances through Sunday, May 19 are at 7:30 p.m., Thursday-Saturday and 2 p.m., Sunday. For more information, call or visit InternationalCityTheatre.org.
Steve Simmons is an accomplished writer and editor who writes about a wide array of topics including entertainment. His successful experience at The Beverly Hills Courier and other publications set the stage for his blog. Contact Steve at steve.simmons0211@gmail.com or 626-788-6734.
ICT’s World Premiere Of Wendy Graf’s ‘Exit Wounds’ Tackles Gun Violence From A Unique Perspective
