STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. — Intense and urgently necessary in today’s America, “What the Constitution Means to Me” is a debate disguised as a play or a play disguised as a debate. An entertaining, powerful production co-presented by by Berkshire Theatre Group and the Berkshires-based WAM Theatre, with WAM’s producing artistic director, Kristen Van Ginhoven, as director, opens the summer-theater season in BTG’s Unicorn Theatre.
Whether seen as engaging theater or captivating civics lesson, the drama by Heidi Schreck, a writer and actor raised in rural Washington halfway between Seattle and Spokane, is bracing as both defense and indictment of the Constitution. Partially autobiographical and based on Schreck’s history of earning money as a teen by touring a lecture about the country’s founding document to American Legion halls, “What the Constitution …” is a deeply personal look at a deeply political subject, and it’s quirky enough that the audience gets to vote on the winner of an onstage debate.
“What the Constitution Means to Me”
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: WAM Theatre and Berkshire Theatre Group at The Unicorn Theatre, 6 East St., Stockbridge, Mass.
Running time: 100 minutes, no intermission
Continues: 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, through June 3. Masks required at Saturday matinees. Sensory-friendly performance at 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 31.
Tickets: $26, $56, $96
Info: 413-997-4444 and berkshiretheatregroup.org
Schreck, nominated for a 2019 Pulitzer Prize and for Tonys as writer and actor for “What the Constitution …,” originated the role and plays what is more or less herself in a version available on Amazon. In Stockbridge, four-time BTG veteran Kate Baldwin plays Heidi, and she is absolutely winning, as impassioned as the bright 15-year-old delivering remarks to a room full of cigar-smoking white men as she is as the adult Heidi,…
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