Playwright Heidi Schreck Stars in WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME, Beginning Tonight at Clubbed Thumb

Five-time Obie Award-winning theater company Clubbed Thumb welcomes Heidi Schreck (I Love Dick) in the cast of her play, WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME during this season's SUMMERWORKS, its annual series of new plays.

WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME, a co-production with True Love Productions, will be Directed by Oliver Butler and will also feature performances from Danny Wolohan (An Octoroon) and the stage debut of 11-year-old Rosdely Ciprian. WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME was commissioned by True Love Productions. Performances will run from tonight, June 21, through July 1. Tickets are now on sale at: www.artful.ly/clubbedthumb.

In Heidi Schreck's WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME, it's 1989 and Heidi is trying to earn enough money to go to college by giving speeches about the Constitution in American Legion Halls across the country. When she loses the first round to Becky Dobbins because her speech isn't personal enough, she decides to go deep. Starting with her great great grandmother, a mail-order bride who died of "melancholia," she traces the effects of a single sentence of the Ninth Amendment on generations of women in her family - and on the violent men they married.

WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME will feature set design by Rachel Hauck, costume design by Michael Krass, lighting design by JenniferSchriever, sound design by Sinan Zafar, original compositions by Heather Robb and choreography by David Neumann.

Now in its 22nd season, SUMMERWORKS will also feature productions of THE WORLD MY MAMA RAISED by Ariel Stess and Directed by Kip Faganand OF GOVERNMENT by Alex Borinsky and Directed by Jeremy Bloom.

SUMMERWORKS 2017 is running now through July 1 at The Wild Project, located at 195 E. 3rd Street, New York 10009 - between Avenues A and B in Manhattan's East Village. Festival passes are now on sale for $60 at www.artful.ly/clubbedthumb/store/passes. Single tickets are now on sale for $25, and student tickets are available for $20.

With its track record for discovering and supporting new playwriting talent - in many cases providing writers with their very first production in New York or anywhere - SUMMERWORKS is one of the most eagerly anticipated theatrical offerings of the year.

Highlights from the previous 21 festivals include the NYC premieres of Gina Gionfriddo, JorDan Harrison, Lisa D'Amour, Jason Grote and Sarah Ruhl; professional debuts of Rinne Groff, Sylvan Oswald, Clare Barron, Susan Stanton and Ariel Stess; and new work by Anne Washburn, Adam Bock, Gregory Moss, Jenny Schwartz, Ethan Lipton, Erin Courtney, Sheila Callaghan, and Jaclyn Backhaus, whose production of MEN ON BOATS returned to the New York stage last summer in a co-production by Playwrights Horizons and Clubbed Thumb. All of these artists continue to make Clubbed Thumb an artistic home.

Past SUMMERWORKS directors include Pam MacKinnon, who also serves as Clubbed Thumb's Board Chair, Lear deBessonet, Anne Kaufman, Davis McCallum, Leigh Silverman, and Ken Rus Schmoll.

Heidi Schreck is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and actor. Her latest play Grand Concourse premiered at Playwrights Horizons, Steppenwolf, and theaters across the country, and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn prize. Her other plays include Creature (New Georges and Page 73); There Are No More Big Secrets (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre); and The Consultant (Long Wharf Theatre). Awards include the Page 73 Fellowship, the Lilly Awards Stacey Mindich Prize, and the Claire Tow Fellowship at Playwrights Horizons. As an actor, Heidi has performed extensively at theaters in NYC and regionally, including the Roundabout, Playwrights Horizons, Center Theatre Group, Shakespeare in the Park, Clubbed Thumb, Berkley Repertory Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, and the Women's Project. She has also appeared on Nurse Jackie, Billions, The Good Wife and Law and Order: SVU. Television writing includes Showtime's Nurse Jackie and Billions, and she is currently a writer and co-executive producer on Amazon's new series I LOVE DICK. Heidi has received two OBIEs, a Drama Desk, and the Theatre World Award.

Clubbed Thumb commissions, develops and produces funny, strange and provocative new plays by living American writers. Since its founding in 1996, the company has earned five Obies including the Ross Wetzsteon Award for sustained artistic excellence. We have presented plays in every form of development, including almost 100 full productions.

True Love Productions: founded by Jeanne Donovan Fisher and Laurie Gilmore. Broadway: The Glass Menagerie, A Doll's House, Part 2, Sweat, The Front Page, Fish in the Dark, Bright Star, Skylight (2015 TONY Award Best Revival of a Play), A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder (2014 TONY Award Best Musical), Fela!, The Norman Conquests (2009 TONY Award Best Revival of a Play), 33 Variations, 13, A Catered Affair, Well, Medea starring Fiona Shawand The Retreat from Moscow. Off-Broadway: True Love at the Zipper Theatre; Everything You Touch, bobrauschenbergamerica, The Tricky Part, Shockheaded Peter, Coraline, The 39 Steps, Sleep No More, Suitcase, Everything Will Be Different, and Paradise Park. Established in 2010 and headed by Tom Cole, the New Play Commissioning Program gives established playwrights the opportunity to create original, new work, free of commercial constraints. Recent commissions include work by Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas, Sheila Callaghan, Heidi Schreck, Craig Lucas, Greg Kotis, and Mark Hollman.

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