Back in 2018, Heidi Schreck wrote and starred in “What the Constitution Means to Me” on Broadway. The production was nominated for two Tony Awards, and went on to tour regional theaters all over the country. The play is based on Schreck’s teenage life as a self-described constitutional zealot.
Towards the beginning of the show, she tells the audience what's about to happen.
“When I was 15 years old, I would travel the country giving speeches about the Constitution at American Legion halls for prize money,” the main character says, getting a laugh from the crowd. “So I thought, what I would do is resurrect the speech and the contest based on what I remember about myself at 15.”
As the play unfolds, Schreck’s attempt to reconstruct her speech prompts her to reckon with the violent marriages of her grandmothers; her own experiences with sexual coercion and abortion; and the ways the document she once revered often fails to guarantee the safety of women.
“What the Constitution Means to Me” is currently playing at the Phoenix Theatre Company, with actress Kate Haas starring in the role of Heidi. Both Haas and Schreck recently joined The Show’s Sam Dingman for a conversation about the production and its constantly-evolving relevance.
Full interview
HEIDI SCHRECK: I didn't know where I was going when I started the play. I really thought I was going to write like kind of a cute comedy about teenage girl debaters. I loved being a debater. I thought it would be a really fun premise to write about this time. And, as soon as I started writing — and I was in my 30s when I began — all of this stuff started coming up.
And when I was looking for a framework for the play and kind of honed in on the prompt that was given, which when I was a kid, the prompt was, “Draw a personal connection between your life and this document.”
KATE HAAS (performing as Heidi): This part was so much harder for me at 15. I was very emotionally guarded as a teenage girl, and I did not want to talk about my grandmother.
HEIDI SCHRECK: I was not ready to look at some of the history of violence and things in my own family. And as soon as I started doing that, the play started taking me in all sorts of deeper, scarier, more confusing directions.
SAM DINGMAN: Yeah, yeah. What did it feel like to let it transform into something so personal? Did you have resistance to that?
SCHRECK: Yes. I had so much resistance. Yes.
In fact, I was just thinking today about how physically kind of sick it made me when I was first creating it. And it was very confusing, too. I was like, “Why am I doing this to myself? Nobody’s asking me to get up here and talk about this stuff.”
But clearly there was a compelling — I both wanted to be seen and not be seen. I both wanted the story to be hidden and to be sort of exposed to the light.
DINGMAN: So, Kate, let me come to you. You're in a fascinating position doing this play. You're playing the role of a person who, as Heidi was just saying, is taking this great personal leap. So how did you approach the role of Heidi Schreck?
HAAS: I'm a voracious reader, so I just want to read the script. Before rehearsal starts, I want to read it as many times as I can. Just trying to do that detective work, trying to find clues to who this person is. And as I'm doing that, I started to see these parallels. So I think it was trying to embody Heidi, but also kind of have those pieces of myself tag along as well.
DINGMAN: Would you be comfortable saying what any of the parallels you found between your own experience and the character were?
HAAS: I think about the history of women in my family, and my grandmother's mother died in childbirth. And I think about these things, and I think a lot of people see those things in their history as well, which is something I think is so meaningful about this piece. It is at the same time very personal and very widespread.
SCHRECK: I'm so moved when people talk about their own families. Thank you for talking about your family. Another thing that really helped me was so many people, when people started coming to the play, they would stay after and talk to me. And I realized very quickly how universal the stories were
And it was sort of inspiring them to reflect on the generations of women in their own families. And that made me feel very much less alone on stage. It became easier to perform after that.
DINGMAN: In the vein of different ways of building a moment, the other thing I wanted to ask you about, Heidi, is the Legionnaire character in the play.
SCHRECK: Yes.
ROB WATSON (performing as Legionnaire): I was very excited when Heidi asked me to be a part of the show, although I did think it was kind of a serious responsibility to be representing positive male energy. I feel like I spent many years sort of refusing to be boxed in, gender-wise …
SCHRECK: So I knew that I wanted the Legionnaire to speak. I wanted to hear a man speak about his own struggle, I guess. Or like where misogyny might live in him.
Originally it was an actor named Danny Wolohan. And I just started interviewing him and sort of asking him if he could tell me stories that kind of related to this idea of, like, the misogyny that he might carry.
He's a wonderful actor and a wonderful storyteller. And so he just told me a bunch of stories. And then with the art director — Oliver Butler, who had a great hand in this, too — sort of shaped that story.
DINGMAN: So that's fascinating. Equally fascinating to me, though, is — that I'd love to hear you both talk about as performers — is what the Heidi character does while the Legionnaire is giving that monologue. Because the Heidi character goes and sits at the back of the stage and just listens. I'm very eager to tell you both what I felt watching you both do it, but I'm curious to know how you approached the playing of that of that moment.
SCHRECK: I'm eager for you to tell us. I going to be really, really frank. One I was like, “Oh my God, thank God I can sit down and stop taling.” That’s my first thought.
HAAS: It does feel really good to sit in that moment.
SCHRECK: And then I had just great pleasure in sitting and listening to them. I felt very moved by their willingness, the fact that they had been there supporting me the whole time and now were also willing to do their own kind of like self-reflection.
DINGMAN: Kate, what about for you?
HAAS: Absolutely. Rob Watson plays Legionnaire, and he absolutely is just this really lovely, positive, warm energy. And I love watching, like, the audience react to that.
In fact, there was a couple sitting just beyond Rob as I was watching his monologue one night. And right at the beginning when he starts and he talks about “Heidi wanted me to be here because, I made her feel safe and supported,” and out of the corner of my eye, I just saw the woman reach over and and take the hand of the man she was sitting next to.
And it was just like, yeah, people are really connecting with it. It's such a beautiful thing. And then to bring in that other perspective of this person that they've been seeing up there to be like, yeah, here's where it has reached me as well.
DINGMAN: Wow. Sorry. I'm very affected by that.
HAAS: Yeah. I was on the night, too. I was like, “Oh my God.”
DINGMAN: I have to say, it's an extraordinary moment to watch as a man because, in watching the Heidi character watch the Legionnaire give the monologue, there's this look of kind of relief — which I hear you both saying it's also literal relief.
But there's also this other element of relief. The conversation it prompted in my head is, is Heidi relieved that there is a man who has this level of dialog and self-awareness with these volatile feelings? Or is the Heidi character relieved that she finally got a chance to create a man like this? Because they're so hard to find in real life?
Because we know that the Heidi character wrote everything that we're seeing, and I appreciated the uncertainty of that so much, that in either of those versions it's totally devastating to watch. …
It's just a testament to the incredible construction of the piece, I think.
HAAS: It feels like it is always so very topical, and it keeps getting more and more important to be having these conversations. So I feel so honored and so excited to be doing this work right now.
DINGMAN: Kate Haas and Heidi Schreck. Teally, really appreciate this conversation.
SCHRECK: Thank you. And thank you, Kate. Thank you for doing the play. And thank you — it's a pleasure and honor to get to talk with you.
HAAS: Yeah. Thank you, Heidi. It is an honor to try to be you on stage. And thank you for these words and this story and sharing that with all of us.
