ARTS&LIFE THEATER
A Homecoming for Hometown Producer
Rachel Sussman and Aaron Glick are Tony Award nominees and producers for What the Constitution Means to Me. JULIE SMITH YOLLES CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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hen Rachel Sussman comes home to visit her family in December, the first stop on her agenda is the Fisher Theatre. She’ll attend performances of What the Constitution Means to Me, which runs from Dec. 14, 2021-Jan. 2, 2022. Sussman is a co-producer of the Tony Award-nominated play and Pulitzer Prize finalist. “I’m really excited that the show that I love so much is coming to my hometown and that Michigan audiences will get to experience it,” says Sussman, who was raised in Bloomfield Township. “This is going to be the first time that I am seeing a show that I co-produced at the Fisher Theatre where I saw shows growing up.” Written by Heidi Schreck, What the Constitution Means to Me starred Schreck on Broadway and has Schreck telling the story of her 15-year-old self who traveled across the country to compete in Constitutional debate competitions and win money to pay for her college tuition. Having given birth to twin girls last year, Schreck will not reprise her role on the national tour. Cassie Beck (I Know What You Did Last
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DECEMBER 2 • 2021
What the Constitution Means to Me producers (from left) Diana DiMenna, Aaron Glick and Rachel Sussman at the 2019 Tony Awards.
Summer and The Humans on Broadway) will take on the comedic and poignant role that traces how the Constitution shaped the lives of four generations of women and the next generation of
Americans. Sussman first saw a New York Theatre Workshop production of What the Constitution Means to Me in the fall of 2018. “I have a very distinct
memory of that day because I watched the Brett Kavanaugh [Supreme Court confirmation] hearings and was understanding his abuse and treatment of women and hearing Christine Ford testify. I went to the play that night, and I remember how painfully resonant it felt. The story is so beautifully personal that it’s universal. I left the theater feeling so overwhelmed. It stayed with me in a powerful way,” Sussman said. When she heard that What the Constitution Means to Me was going to Broadway, she called the three lead producers, Aaron Glick, Diana DiMenna and Matt Ross, and said that she wanted to be a co-producer. “I just knew that if I wasn’t a part of it, I would regret it,” says Sussman, who became a co-producer along with her partners JJ Maley and Cori Stolbun. Sussman became friends with Glick when she interned at 321 Theatrical Management the summer of 2011, just prior to her senior year at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Glick was working as a Broadway producer in the same building at Stone Productions, which oversees Wicked, The 25th Annual
