From the Wings: Exploring the role of the Constitution in women’s lives
Published 1:30 am Friday, June 26, 2026
On the heels of Matilda The Musical, a production with a large cast and high energy, Driftwood Players is presenting an intimate, introspective production in honor of America’s 250th celebration.
What the Constitution Means to Me features only three cast members, and with the stage at seat level, there is no physical separation between the actors and the audience. Which is a reflection of the play’s subject matter — whether we are fully cognizant of it or not, the Constitution governs our lives.
Written in 2017 by Hedi Schreck and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2019, What the Constitution Means to Me premiered in March 31, 2019, on Broadway. The play is akin to a memoir, with Schreck using her experience as a 15-year-old participating in Constitutional debates for college tuition to explore how the Constitution has affected women in her family, and American women at large, in a way that men, particularly white men, have not. In the early productions, Schreck portrayed herself.
Throughout the play, Schreck weaves in statistics on the violence against women and how the Constitution continually fails to protect women and children, and contemporary headlines demonstrate that those statistics remain as relevant today as they were in 2017. Case in point – the Epstein files.
Bringing this production to the stage is Patty Sundstrom playing Hedi, Gary Morean playing the Legionnaire, and Kieran Church as the Teen Debater, with Director Steven Puvogel, Assistant Director Natasha Brown-Williams, and the crew Naomi Watkins, Noah Johnson, Nick Cler and E Delanoy.
On Monday before dress rehearsal, The Daily World had a chance to observe Puvogel and the crew fine tuning the spotlight cues and light levels and chatted with Sundstrom and Morean before they took to the stage.
What follows is our conversation edited for length and clarity.
The Daily World: How was it working with Patty again, after you both just performed in Hello, Dolly!?
Gary Morean: I tried to convince her that we needed to do this show. I’ve seen it a couple times, and she and I saw it together in Seattle, and I just loved it. And it’s really her wheelhouse because she taught [American history] and the Constitution for 38 years.
TDW: When you saw the production in Seattle, what did you love about it?
GM: It’s such a different show. It’s a total break-the-fourth-wall show from the get-go. From the very beginning, [Heidi] comes out and talks to the audience right at the very beginning.
TDW: How is the play structured?
GM: I like to call it three acts. The first part is Heidi’s age now, like 50 something, and she says, ‘Hi, I’m Heidi, and I did this competition, and I’m going to go back to that, and you’re all going to be legionnaires. So you’re mostly all men. You’re mostly white, and you’re smoking cigars.’ And I’m a legionnaire running the competition that she’s remembering
There are points in the competition where she breaks and tells a little story. Eventually, we break away from those characters, and Heidi becomes her 55-year-old self and reveals that when she wrote this show, she hired a friend, Mike, the actor. Then I become an actor who tells his background, where he comes from and how excited he is to be a part of her show.
And in the end when Kieran and Patty are debating, we become ourselves.
TDW: Is it a little bit of a head trip having to keep track of which character you’re playing?
GM: No, because even when I’m playing myself, it’s not myself, right? It’s that character.
[The play is] interesting from that structural point of view that it’s always talking to the audience. It’s like going to a constitutional lecture, but you don’t know you’re being lectured to. You’re getting this history in an entertaining way.
TDW: Patty, Gary mentioned that you both saw the play. What was your reaction?
PS: The first time I saw it, it was just so impactful, and it hit all the right chords for me. Even though there’s a lot of really hard topics, it’s very pro-women. Even though they talk about abuse and violence, we have to have this conversation.
I was also a history teacher and taught government, so the topics themselves seem to really flow pretty well. I have a gazillion lines to learn but so many of the stories I knew so well.
GM: I said we need to do this show, but she was waffling all the way through.
PS: My son flew home to see me in Hello, Dolly! A day before the auditions, we watched a production of this show with Heidi on Prime. About 10 minutes into it, my son looks at me and goes, ‘Mom, you have to do this. It is so you.’
TDW: How did you prepare since it was an impromptu decision?
PS: For auditions, you just read what they tell you to read. But as far as learning the script, I definitely gave myself deadlines that I needed to meet because I had so many lines to learn. I did it in chunks because I wanted to make sure that I had it all learned before Memorial Day. I’ve had a lot of people helping me — my husband and the kids and Gary.
TDW: How was the transition from Hello, Dolly! to playing Heidi?
PS: I’ve always been much more comfortable in a musical because my skill is singing so I’m a singer-actor
GM: I’m an actor-singer, so nobody’s going to complain about my singing.
PS: In this kind of a play, I can’t fall back on my comfort zone of singing, so I’ve just really had to work and I’m enjoying it.
There are times in this show when it’s really hard not to just be overwhelmed by the statistics or the story or horrible things that have happened to people. Sometimes I’m reading a history lesson of events — let’s go back and figure out why women have been treated so badly. From day one, the law said, you don’t matter and it goes back to Hammurabi in 1800 BC. There’s clips from the actual Supreme Court cases, and we hear the judges talking.
GM: There’s one clip where two justices are arguing whether shall means must. What does shall mean? Does shall mean shall? When you’re reading the Constitution — that’s exactly what we’re learning in law school — that’s exactly what they’re doing.
TDW: Now having performed the play after seeing it, are there takeaways that you didn’t expect to have?
PS: There’s one case that’s really hard to talk about. There was a TV show way back when called Here Come the Brides, and it was about how these women were the brides they brought into Seattle to marry the loggers. It was a great show; I remember it being light and fluffy and all this fun.
One of the stories that comes out in this [play] is that her mother, or her great-great-grandmother was one of those brides, and it was not light and it was awful.
A lot of the stories I knew but seeing it from a different set of eyes is really valuable.
GM: It’s an empathy-widening show. There are some members in our community who have said people are going to walk out on this room because it’s uncomfortable. But at the same time, you’ve got to face the realities of our situation and say, yeah, that’s pretty uncomfortable for our history.
PS: I taught history, so it feels a lot like I get to teach a history lesson and say, ‘Hey, pay attention.’
Performance Dates
June: 26*, 27, 28
July: 3, 4 (two performances)
*Pay what you can night
Friday and Saturday Evenings at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday Matinee at 2 p.m.
Ticket price: $20 or $10 Student rush tickets available at the door only
Buy tickets at the door or online at: https://main.aberdeendriftwood.com/purchase-tickets/
Driftwood Players Award Winners
Last week, Driftwood Players announced their award winners for the 2025/2026 season.
Mabs George Service Award – Katharyn Duffy (not pictured)
Betty Butler Award – Mark Scoones (not pictured)
The Ham Award – Cal Amendola (Matilda)
Best Actor in a Small Role – Carlos Cruz (Kong’s Night Out)
Best Actress in a Small Role – Debbie Scoones (Matilda) (not pictured)
Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Casey Bronson (Matilda)
Best Actress in a Supporting Role – Julayne Fleury (Matilda)
Best Actor in a Lead Role – AJ Cooper (Matilda)
Best Actress in a Lead Role – Jasmine Jo Lock (The Diary of Anne Frank)
And what can you look forward to Driftwood Players presenting in 2026 and through 2027?
I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change
Champagne Opening on Saturday September 26, October 2, 3, 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, and 18
House on Haunted Hill
Nov. 27 through Dec. 13
Silent Sky
February 12 through February 28
Jesus Christ Superstar
May 7 through May 23
Hir
June 18 through 27
