Dave Malloy in white judge's robes with ornate beading holds a cross necklace while seated in front of an American flag for Lab Theater Project's "The Cross & The Saber" — Dave Malloy plays a cross-wielding judge in Lab Theater Project’s “The Cross & The Saber” running July 2-19 in Tampa. Credit: Courtesy of Lab Theater

If MAGA’s notion of semiquincentennial patriotism is all about UFC matches and rah-rah birthday bashes, many local theaters have a different idea. Three Tampa Bay companies are observing America 250 this summer with plays that raise key questions about the country’s founding principles.

As its title foretells, The Beach Theatre’s production of “What the Constitution Means to Me” gets right to the point. Heidi Schreck’s Pulitzer and Tony-nominated play drew inspiration from the playwright’s experience as a 15-year-old contestant in Constitutional debate contests. As she recounts and relives those teenage moments, she considers what she’s come to understand about the Constitution’s meaning in her own life today—and in all our lives—and whether the freedoms it promised have truly come to pass. In the second half of the play, there’s an actual debate between Schreck and a teenage opponent, asking if it’s time to replace the Constitution altogether. The winner is decided by audience vote.

“Constitution” will be Beach Theatre’s first-ever full-length theatrical production. Hannah Hockman and her parents famously restored the St. Pete Beach landmark last year, returning it to its former glory as a movie house. But Hannah’s intention from the outset was to make the cinema a home for live theater as well. In fact, she and her father talked about doing Schreck’s play there while they were in the midst of the restoration—because, she says, “This is a play I’ve never shut up about” since seeing the Broadway production (which starred Schreck herself) in 2019.

When she saw that the first slot in the Beach theatrical season (June 26-July 6) would intersect with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the choice of an opener was a no-brainer.

“Once I realized the timing would literally be across the 250th celebration, we had to do it. It was some cool twist of fate there.”

Another twist: Hannah is directing her former teacher, Katie Combs of Bay Area Performing Arts and Casting, in the role of Schreck. Combs was Hannah’s voice teacher when she was 16.

“It’s very funny when I give her notes,” says Hannah. “She takes them very well.”

As Schreck, Combs must shift between the playwright’s teenage persona, her adult self, and Combs’s own voice. Joe Condon, who plays a Legionnaire in charge of the debate, also dips into more personal territory as the play goes on. Ever Whittinghill plays the teenager who vies against Schreck in the audience-decided debate; she was recommended for the role by her teacher at John Hopkins Middle School.

Hannah says all three are up to the play’s considerable challenges. As for doing a show in “an 86-year-old theater that never did theater before,” she’s happily dealing with that challenge, too. And she’s excited about the potential impact of “Constitution.”

“A lot of people might have conflicted feelings about the 250th Anniversary,” she acknowledges. “This play literally opens and inspires conversation, whatever that may be.”

Tickets to “What The Constitution Means To Me” at The Beach Theatre in St. Pete Beach on select nights and days from June 26-July 6 are still available and start at $20.

‘What the Constitution Means to Me’

Time Mon., July 6, 7 p.m.

Location The Beach Theatre, 315 Corey Avenue, St Pete Beach

“Please don’t let these things happen'”
LAB Executive Director Owen Robertson

Conversations will very likely abound after audiences see “The Cross and the Saber” at LAB Theater Project (July 2-19). Although playwright Wendy Graf began work on the script 14 years ago and LAB Executive Director Owen Robertson read an early iteration in 2012, it could have been written last week. With Pete Hegseth dictating soldiers’ religious preferences and the Trump White House backing Christian prayer rallies on the National Mall, LAB’s description of the play’s milieu sounds distressingly plausible: “a near-future America where nationalism and religion have fused into a weapon of political control.”

“I made the decision to do this show last summer,” says Robertson. “We weren’t in the chaos we’re in now. Now I’m sitting on a show that every day is more topical and more prescient than it was before.”

In Graf’s scenario, a progressive reverend named Isaiah Profitt refuses to turn his church into a mouthpiece for the state and is charged with treason by an authoritarian regime. Even more of the current moment: A.I. has taken over the legal system. The defense attorney is an android who rejects Profitt’s “not guilty” plea, explaining, “All our data says you should plead guilty,” and the grand jury system has been completely automated to speed up the process.

However, says Robertson, “We don’t want the play to come off like we’re preaching. Yes, we’re holding up a mirror, but Wendy does a good job injecting humor” into the proceedings. The trial, he says, “descends into theater of the absurd.”

No wonder, with legal teams made up of androids, who are meant to appear human until they identify themselves as not. Tasked with finding their inner robot are actors Zach “Hippie” Griswold, Cameron Rovillo, and Holly Marie Weber as the prosecutor. “We asked her to give us her very best Pam Bondi behavior.”

Aaron Ford, a relative newcomer to local theater, takes on the role of Profitt, while veterans Katherine Yacko and Michael C. McGreevy play his wife and father. Amanda Capello, Dave Malloy and Samantha Martí-Parisi round out the cast as, respectively, a Fox TV host, a cross-wielding judge, and a disembodied Alexa-type voice.

And then there’s The Great Leader. But we never see him except on The Great Leader channel, which plays all the time.

Could happen. But, as Robertson says, “Please don’t let these things happen.”

Tickets are $31 for Lab Theater Project’s “The Cross & The Saber” running July 2-19 in Tampa.

The Cross & the Saber

Time Sundays, 3-5 p.m. and Thursdays-Saturdays, 8-10 p.m. Continues through July 19

Location LAB Theater Project, 812 E Henderson Ave, Tampa

“Today, we haven’t moved far beyond the challenges women faced in the 1960s.”
Meg Crane, inventor of the home pregnancy test

At Powerstories Theater, Jennifer Blackmer’s “Predictor” (July 17-26 at Stageworks) deals with something that did happen: the invention of the home pregnancy test. A revolutionary step forward in reproductive health, it was also a triumph for women’s rights to privacy and bodily autonomy. (These so-called “penumbral” rights figure prominently in Heidi Schreck’s Constitutional debates, too.)

And whaddya know: The test was invented by a woman, Meg Crane, in 1967. Powerstories’ Executive Artistic Director Clareann Despain discussed Crane’s discovery in a recent interview with Maggie Duffy and Jana Henson, co-hosts of Tampa Bay Arts Passport’s new podcast “The Peanut Gallery.”

Crane was a graphic designer for the pharmaceutical company Organon, hired to pretty up the packaging for women’s cosmetics. Her office, Despain said, was located in a small building on the company campus nicknamed “The Rabbit House.” Its basement was a lab, where techs would inject rabbits with urine samples sent to the company by doctors whose patients were expecting (or wondering). Then they’d kill the rabbits and examine their ovaries to see if the pregnancy hormone in the urine had caused the rabbits to ovulate.

Crane, sitting upstairs in her office listening to the rabbits scream, decided there had to be a better way.

“She happens to see how the test is done,” says Despain, “and she’s like, ‘Oh that’s crazy simple. How do we get it in the hands of women at home? She realizes it’s not a science problem, it’s a design problem, and she can solve it with her skills as an artist.”

Which she did, but not without resistance from the men who ran the company, who insisted a home test would raise moral questions. “And she’s like, ‘Well, really, it’s a finance question,’ says Despain. “It’s just about getting it out there.”

Crane is grateful to Blackmer and Powerstories for bringing her story to life. “I was a young woman with an idea that was not acceptable to the male-dominated company I worked for. That idea, that a woman should be able to test herself for pregnancy. Today, we haven’t moved far beyond the challenges women faced in the 1960s.”

Like the plays mentioned previously, “Predictor” may deal with serious issues, but it also promises to be funny. Promo materials describe the play as “an absurdist comic romp, a game show, and a heartfelt exploration of what it means to fight for agency in a world determined to silence you.”

Gigi Jennewein directs a cast of seven, featuring Jenna Jane as Crane with Ivy Sunflower, Kari Velguth, Jill Schroeder, Landon Green, Will Chamblee, and Matt DePasquale playing multiple roles.

And here’s a bonus: Meg Crane herself will be on hand for a July 24 meet-and-greet and a July 25 talkback, both included in the ticket cost. She’ll also be taking part in a pre-show Zoom at Powerstories Studio on June 28 at 4 p.m. It’s a free event, but RSVP is required.

Tickets are $22-$37 for Powerstories’ “Predictor” running July 17-26 at Stageworks in Tampa.

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