“What the Constitution Means to Me” isn’t just a critical darling — the Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony-nominated play is also hugely popular among audiences. Its producers have announced that the play has recouped its $2.5 million Broadway capitalization. Deadline confirmed the news.
“What the Constitution Means to Me” sees playwright and star Heidi Schreck revisiting the Constitution lectures she gave as a teenager for college scholarship money. Schreck takes on the role of her 15-year-old self to break down the document’s effects on the lives of women past and present.
“The milestone arrived with the week ending July 14, with six weeks left in the Broadway engagement,” the source details. “The production will deliver a full return of capital to investors” — no small feat “during a Broadway summer when good financial news is sparse. A recent Forbes article tallied $111 million in losses from recent or recently announced Broadway closings.”
Schreck won’t be performing in the national 40-week, 22-city tour of the play, and her replacement hasn’t been announced yet. She’s dedicating her time to other projects, including an adaptation of Patricia Lockwood’s memoir “Priestdaddy” for Amazon. A former Lutheran minister, Lockwood’s father converted to Catholicism and became one of the few married Catholic priests.
“I started [‘What the Constitution Means to Me’] at a completely different moment. I started writing it 10 years ago and I first performed it while Obama was president,” Shreck has said. “And at the time, I felt like I was questioning the document in deep ways — the efficacy of the document. I did not expect to be performing it at a time when the norms of democracy were being threatened the way they are. I did not expect to be performing it at a time when the Constitution was being disregarded in so many ways.”
“Grand Concourse,” “Creature,” and “There Are No More Big Secrets” are among Schreck’s other plays. She’s also written for TV on series such as “I Love Dick,” “Billions,” and “Nurse Jackie.” She appeared in the latter two.
