(MONTCLAIR, NJ) -- Vanguard Theater Company presents What The Constitution Means to Me weekends from March 27 through April 12, 2026. Playwright Heidi Schreck’s boundary-breaking play breathes new life into our Constitution and imagines how it will shape the next generation of Americans.
Fifteen-year-old Heidi earned her college tuition by winning Constitutional debate competitions across the United States. In this hilarious, hopeful and achingly human new play, she resurrects her teenage self in order to trace the profound relationship between four generations of women and the founding document that shaped their lives.
The cast includes Doreen Oliver (Heidi), and Mychal Leverage (Legionnaire) with debaters Jada Jane Clark, Laci Sova, Ella Williams, and Pippa Knowles. The production is directed by Dana Iannuzzi.
Tickets are available for purchase online. The running time is 90 minutes. Vanguard Theater is located at 180 Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair, New Jersey.
What the Constitution Means to Me premiered off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop on September 12, 2018. The play opened on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre on March 31, 2019. Initially announced for a 12-week engagement, the Broadway production extended twice and fully recouped its investment, shattering box office records, for a total run of 24 weeks. Following Broadway, What the Constitution Means to Me played a record-breaking limited engagement run at the Eisenhower Theater at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., as well as two sit-down engagements in Los Angeles and Chicago before halting performances due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Heidi Schreck is a writer and performer living in Brooklyn. Her critically-acclaimed play What the Constitution Means to Me played an extended, sold-out run on Broadway in 2019 and was nominated for two Tony Awards. A filmed version of the play premiered on Amazon Prime Video and was nominated for a Critics Choice Award, a PGA Award and DGA Award. What the Constitution Means to Me was named Best of the Year by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Time Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, The New Yorker and more. Schreck’s other plays Grand Concourse, Creature and There Are No More Big Secrets have also been produced in NYC and all over the country. Most recently, she created a new translation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya for the Broadway production at Lincoln Center. Screenwriting credits include I Love Dick, Billions, Nurse Jackie and Dispatches from Elsewhere. She is the recipient of three Obie Awards, a Drama Desk Award and a Theatre World Award, as well as the Horton Foote Playwriting Award and the Hull-Warriner Award from the Dramatists Guild. Schreck was awarded Smithsonian Magazine’s 2019 American Ingenuity Award for her work in the Performing Arts.
Founded in 2015, Vanguard Theater is a not-for-profit company changing social and cultural narratives through theater dedicated to DREAM: Diversity, Reciprocity, Education, Activism & Mentorship.
