Theatre 605 closes its summer season with a deeply personal American debate
Onstage at the Black Hills Playhouse this week, a grown woman steps back into the role of the 15-year-old who paid her college tuition by debating the United States Constitution.
In What the Constitution Means to Me, playwright Heidi Schreck returns to the competitions she entered as a teenager, when she traveled the country delivering speeches about the document’s amendments and the protections they promised. Years later, she brings those arguments back to examine a harder question: Who has the Constitution protected, and who has been left waiting for its promises to become real?
The play moves between Schreck’s teenage debates, her adult perspective and the experiences of four generations of women in her family. What begins with a teenager standing before an American Legion audience grows into a personal examination of citizenship, power, bodily autonomy and the ways laws reach into individual lives.
Theatre 605’s production stars Emily Wirkus as Heidi, Erik K. Larsen as the Legionnaire and Finley Nelson as the debater. Jayna Gearhart Fitzsimmons directs.
The production arrives during a year when the United States is marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Rather than treating the Constitution as a finished historical object, Schreck puts it back under debate. The questions she raised as a teenager are reconsidered through what she later learned about her family, the country and the distance between a constitutional right and a person’s ability to exercise it.
What the Constitution Means to Me closes Theatre 605’s 80th summer season at the Black Hills Playhouse, following The Complete History of America (abridged), 1776 and Come From Away. Four performances remain before the curtain falls on Saturday night.
Know Before You Go
What: What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck
Where: Black Hills Playhouse in Custer State Park
Remaining performances: August 13 and 14 at 7:30 p.m.; August 15 at 2 and 7:30 p.m.
Recommended age: 14 and older
Content advisory: Strong language and mature themes, including violence against women and abortion
Runtime: Presented without an intermission
Park entrance: A Custer State Park pass is required and may be purchased at the snack bar
or by calling the box office at 605-255-4141.
If you’ve never been to the Black Hills Playhouse, plan a little extra time for the drive through Custer State Park. The theater sits in one of the Hills’ most scenic settings, and wildlife traffic is common along the route. Arriving early also gives you time to pick up concessions before the show.