“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” – Preamble to the Constitution
Schreck began working on [What the Constitution Means to Me] in 2007, when she was living in Brooklyn, and performed a brief monologue at P.S. 122, an alternative-theater space in Manhattan’s East Village, about her teenage debating experiences.
“I really started from the tiny spark that so many plays start from,” she told me in an interview this past September, shortly after the play closed on Broadway and was beginning a run at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. “I certainly didn’t have a grand idea.”
Encouraged by the response to her initial effort, she set about expanding the piece. It was when she posed herself the challenge that her 15-year-old self was given during those contests — find a personal connection between her life and the Constitution — that the work grew into a kind of feminist deconstruction of the nation’s founding document. …
What the Constitution Means “sort of took its own shape,” she said. “I felt as if the play led me.” Schreck, who was briefly on a prelaw track in college before English and theater swept her away, turned herself into something of a constitutional expert, taking a deep dive into the mindset of the men who wrote the Constitution, who was left out of it and how it has been shaped over time. In the play, she talks quite a bit about the Ninth Amendment, which says simply, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Or, as she puts it onstage, the Constitution doesn’t guarantee you the right to brush your teeth, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have that right. (The Ninth Amendment has helped secure, for instance, the right to use birth control.)
She enlarges, too, on the concept of negative rights versus positive rights — things that the government is expressly forbidden to infringe upon versus things that are proactively guaranteed. She studied up on the constitutions of other nations that have a greater emphasis on positive rights than does the U.S. Constitution. South Africa, for instance, guarantees the right to human dignity and to a healthy environment.
Heidi Schreck, in an interview with Neil Genzlinger “Heidi Schreck’s Riveting Play Deconstructs the U.S. Constitution,” Smithsonian Magazine, as part of the Smithsonian’s Ingenuity Awards, December 2019
The United States Constitution was written in 1787, but it has been amended 27 times since it became law two centuries ago (the most recent amendment was ratified in 1992). The first 10 amendments, called the Bill of Rights, were proposed by Congress in September 1789 and certified in December 1791. Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me focuses particularly on the Ninth Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified after the Civil War.
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
The Ninth Amendment was essentially a compromise between those who supported a Bill of Rights and those who felt it was unnecessary. Supporters of a Bill of Rights wanted to ensure that certain individual rights received constitutional protection, limiting the federal government’s power over those rights. Opponents of a Bill of Rights said it would be impossible to list all rights and that delineating only some rights would suggest that any rights not expressly noted were not protected. Thus, the text of the Ninth Amendment makes clear this latter point: just because rights are not enumerated explicitly in the Constitution does not mean they are denied to the people.
For more information read:
“Common Interpretation: The Ninth Amendment” by Randy E. Barnett and Louis Michael Seidman for the National Constitution Center
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
The primary purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to protect the citizenship rights of formerly enslaved people. One of three amendments that were passed in the wake of the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment has five sections, and the first section is of interest to Schreck. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment defines who is a citizen of the U.S. and protects the equal rights and privileges of citizens and their right to due process. The most significant and immediate effect of this amendment was to overturn the Dred Scott decision of 1857 that declared freed slaves born within a state or nation were not entitled to citizenship. This Fourteenth Amendment ensured and protected citizenship and its rights to all former slaves in the U.S. by declaring that all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. are citizens.
The Fourteenth Amendment is one of the most frequently cited amendments in litigation and has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to affirm the citizenship of any child born in the U.S., regardless of the citizenship status of their parents; that citizens cannot be artificial people and a corporate body is not a citizen; that separate is not equal under the equal protection clause; to affirm a woman’s right to an abortion; and to affirm the right to same-sex marriage.
What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck, acting edition, published by Concord Theatricals.
Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September 1787 by Catherine Drinker Bowen, published by Little, Brown and Company, 1966.
Located in Philadelphia, the National Constitution Center is the country’s leading platform for Constitution education and debate. www.constitutioncenter.org
A curated history of the Constitution by The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History based on historical moments discussed in the play. www.gilderlehrman.org
Online hub for all things related to the Constitution, including full texts, quizzes and more. www.constitutionfacts.com
A government-sanctioned record of interpretation of the Constitution regularly updated and written in “plain English.” Useful for all audiences, it is maintained by the Library of Congress and Congressional Research Service. www.constitution.congress.gov
Forum and webcast series about the Constitution curated by the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute for American Democracy. oconnorinstitute.org
What The Constitution Means To Me includes historical audio recordings that feature the voices of the following Supreme Court Justices:
Genzlinger, Neil, “Heidi Schreck’s Riveting Play Deconstructs the U.S. Constitution,” Smithsonian Magazine, as part of the Smithsonian’s Ingenuity Awards, December 2019.
Link
Murphy, Aisling, “Hit Play About U.S. Constitution Debuts in Canada. Amended, of Course.” The New York Times, November 1, 2024.
Link
Larson, Sarah, “In Heidi Schreck’s New Play, Teen Girls Talk About the Constitution,” The New Yorker, June 26, 2017
Link
Myers, Victoria Myers, “Heidi Schreck on What the Constitution Means to Me (meaning her, and maybe you too),” The Interval, September 11, 2018
Link
Myers, Victoria Myers, “The Prophet Arrived: Heidi Schreck,” The Interval, December 10, 2018
Link
“Heidi Schreck: Kids Read the Constitution,” as heard on Ask Me Another, National Public Radio, October 23, 2020.
Link
“We the People,” The New York Times, August 4, 2021.
Link
Schreck began working on [What the Constitution Means to Me] in 2007, when she was living in Brooklyn, and performed a brief monologue at P.S. 122, an alternative-theater space in Manhattan’s East Village, about her teenage debating experiences.
“I really started from the tiny spark that so many plays start from,” she told me in an interview this past September, shortly after the play closed on Broadway and was beginning a run at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. “I certainly didn’t have a grand idea.”
Encouraged by the response to her initial effort, she set about expanding the piece. It was when she posed herself the challenge that her 15-year-old self was given during those contests — find a personal connection between her life and the Constitution — that the work grew into a kind of feminist deconstruction of the nation’s founding document. …
What the Constitution Means “sort of took its own shape,” she said. “I felt as if the play led me.” Schreck, who was briefly on a prelaw track in college before English and theater swept her away, turned herself into something of a constitutional expert, taking a deep dive into the mindset of the men who wrote the Constitution, who was left out of it and how it has been shaped over time. In the play, she talks quite a bit about the Ninth Amendment, which says simply, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Or, as she puts it onstage, the Constitution doesn’t guarantee you the right to brush your teeth, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have that right. (The Ninth Amendment has helped secure, for instance, the right to use birth control.)
She enlarges, too, on the concept of negative rights versus positive rights — things that the government is expressly forbidden to infringe upon versus things that are proactively guaranteed. She studied up on the constitutions of other nations that have a greater emphasis on positive rights than does the U.S. Constitution. South Africa, for instance, guarantees the right to human dignity and to a healthy environment.
Heidi Schreck, in an interview with Neil Genzlinger “Heidi Schreck’s Riveting Play Deconstructs the U.S. Constitution,” Smithsonian Magazine, as part of the Smithsonian’s Ingenuity Awards, December 2019
The United States Constitution was written in 1787, but it has been amended 27 times since it became law two centuries ago (the most recent amendment was ratified in 1992). The first 10 amendments, called the Bill of Rights, were proposed by Congress in September 1789 and certified in December 1791. Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me focuses particularly on the Ninth Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified after the Civil War.
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
The Ninth Amendment was essentially a compromise between those who supported a Bill of Rights and those who felt it was unnecessary. Supporters of a Bill of Rights wanted to ensure that certain individual rights received constitutional protection, limiting the federal government’s power over those rights. Opponents of a Bill of Rights said it would be impossible to list all rights and that delineating only some rights would suggest that any rights not expressly noted were not protected. Thus, the text of the Ninth Amendment makes clear this latter point: just because rights are not enumerated explicitly in the Constitution does not mean they are denied to the people.
For more information read:
“Common Interpretation: The Ninth Amendment” by Randy E. Barnett and Louis Michael Seidman for the National Constitution Center
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
The primary purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to protect the citizenship rights of formerly enslaved people. One of three amendments that were passed in the wake of the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment has five sections, and the first section is of interest to Schreck. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment defines who is a citizen of the U.S. and protects the equal rights and privileges of citizens and their right to due process. The most significant and immediate effect of this amendment was to overturn the Dred Scott decision of 1857 that declared freed slaves born within a state or nation were not entitled to citizenship. This Fourteenth Amendment ensured and protected citizenship and its rights to all former slaves in the U.S. by declaring that all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. are citizens.
The Fourteenth Amendment is one of the most frequently cited amendments in litigation and has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to affirm the citizenship of any child born in the U.S., regardless of the citizenship status of their parents; that citizens cannot be artificial people and a corporate body is not a citizen; that separate is not equal under the equal protection clause; to affirm a woman’s right to an abortion; and to affirm the right to same-sex marriage.
What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck, acting edition, published by Concord Theatricals.
Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September 1787 by Catherine Drinker Bowen, published by Little, Brown and Company, 1966.
Located in Philadelphia, the National Constitution Center is the country’s leading platform for Constitution education and debate. www.constitutioncenter.org
A curated history of the Constitution by The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History based on historical moments discussed in the play. www.gilderlehrman.org
Online hub for all things related to the Constitution, including full texts, quizzes and more. www.constitutionfacts.com
A government-sanctioned record of interpretation of the Constitution regularly updated and written in “plain English.” Useful for all audiences, it is maintained by the Library of Congress and Congressional Research Service. www.constitution.congress.gov
Forum and webcast series about the Constitution curated by the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute for American Democracy. oconnorinstitute.org
What The Constitution Means To Me includes historical audio recordings that feature the voices of the following Supreme Court Justices:
Genzlinger, Neil, “Heidi Schreck’s Riveting Play Deconstructs the U.S. Constitution,” Smithsonian Magazine, as part of the Smithsonian’s Ingenuity Awards, December 2019.
Link
Murphy, Aisling, “Hit Play About U.S. Constitution Debuts in Canada. Amended, of Course.” The New York Times, November 1, 2024.
Link
Larson, Sarah, “In Heidi Schreck’s New Play, Teen Girls Talk About the Constitution,” The New Yorker, June 26, 2017
Link
Myers, Victoria Myers, “Heidi Schreck on What the Constitution Means to Me (meaning her, and maybe you too),” The Interval, September 11, 2018
Link
Myers, Victoria Myers, “The Prophet Arrived: Heidi Schreck,” The Interval, December 10, 2018
Link
“Heidi Schreck: Kids Read the Constitution,” as heard on Ask Me Another, National Public Radio, October 23, 2020.
Link
“We the People,” The New York Times, August 4, 2021.
Link
Brigitte (she/hers) is a native Bay Area actress and theatre maker. When Brigitte is not on the stage she is taking your calls managing the Hillbarn Box office. Brigitte Is very excited to be back performing on the Hillbarn stage with such an incredible wealth of bay area talent. Some past roles include Ensemble/swing in Kinky Boots (ROLT), Kelly Manning in The Mad Ones & Heather Chandler in Heathers (PSP), Ali in Mamma Mia (San Jose Stage Co), Poppy in Noises Off (Hillbarn Theatre), Little Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods (LASC).
