Theater News

What the Constitution Means to Me and Redesigned Christmas Carol Set for Guthrie Season

Live performances return to Minneapolis’s Tony-winning regional theater.

Heidi Schreck (pictured) wrote and starred in the Broadway production of What the Constitution Means to Me at the Helen Hayes Theater. Cassie Beck takes on the role for the national tour.
Heidi Schreck (pictured) wrote and starred in the Broadway production of What the Constitution Means to Me at the Helen Hayes Theater. Cassie Beck takes on the role for the national tour.
(© Joan Marcus)

The Guthrie Theater will return to live, in-person performances on September 30 with the national tour of Heidi Schreck's What the Constitution Means to Me, starring Cassie Beck (The Humans). Running through October 24, the show is a confessional monologue about a woman (named Heidi Schreck) looking back on her teenage participation in VFW hall speeches about the US constitution.

The season continues in November with Lavina Jadhwani's new adaptation of Charles Dickens's holiday favorite, A Christmas Carol. Guthrie artistic director Joseph Haj helms the production, which will feature an all-new design. Performances continue through December 27.

The new year will see a new production of Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 drama A Raisin in the Sun, about three generations of a Black family grappling with different definitions of the American dream and how to achieve it. Austene Van directs the production, which will run January 8 through February 13.

The Guthrie will welcome back former artistic director Joe Dowling to direct The Tempest, widely seen as Shakespeare's farewell play, about the exiled Duke of Milan on an enchanted island. It is slated to play February 26 through April 16.

John Tufts, playwright Kate Hamill, and Jason O'Connell starred in the 2017 off-Broadway debut of Pride and Prejudice at the Cherry Lane Theatre.
John Tufts, playwright Kate Hamill, and Jason O'Connell starred in the 2017 off-Broadway debut of Pride and Prejudice at the Cherry Lane Theatre.
(© James Leynse)

The world premiere of Kate Hamill's new play version of Jane Austen's Emma will perform June 18 – August 21, 2022. Hamill is best known for her zippy and humorous stage adaptations of classic literature, including Little Women and Sense and Sensibility. Meredith McDonough (Guthrie's production of Noises Off) directs.

The 2021-2022 season will conclude in the hottest days of summer with Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning Sweat, about a working-class community in Reading, Pennsylvania, navigating the perilous waters of deindustrialization during the early part of this century. It is set to play July 16 through August 21, 2022.

The Guthrie will officially reopen its doors to the public on July 8, 2021, welcoming guests to enjoy its public spaces and riverfront views as it marks 15 years in the historic Minneapolis Mill District.