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Dave Malloy plays a cross-wielding judge in Lab Theater Project\u2019s \u201cThe Cross & The Saber\u201d running July 2-19 in Tampa. Credit: Courtesy of Lab Theater<\/p>\nDave Malloy plays a cross-wielding judge in Lab Theater Project\u2019s \u201cThe Cross & The Saber\u201d running July 2-19 in Tampa. Credit: Courtesy of Lab Theater<\/p>\n
If MAGA\u2019s 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\u2019s founding principles.<\/p>\n
As its title foretells, The Beach Theatre\u2019s production of \u201cWhat the Constitution Means to Me\u201d <\/a>gets right to the point. Heidi Schreck\u2019s Pulitzer and Tony-nominated play drew inspiration from the playwright\u2019s experience as a 15-year-old contestant in Constitutional debate contests. As she recounts and relives those teenage moments, she considers what she\u2019s come to understand about the Constitution\u2019s meaning in her own life today\u2014and in all our lives\u2014and whether the freedoms it promised have truly come to pass. In the second half of the play, there\u2019s an actual debate between Schreck and a teenage opponent, asking if it\u2019s time to replace the Constitution altogether. The winner is decided by audience vote.<\/p>\n \u201cConstitution\u201d will be Beach Theatre\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s play there while they were in the midst of the restoration\u2014because, she says, \u201cThis is a play I\u2019ve never shut up about\u201d since seeing the Broadway production (which starred Schreck herself)\u00a0 in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce I realized the timing would literally be across the 250th celebration, we had to do it. It was some cool twist of fate there.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s voice teacher when she was 16.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very funny when I give her notes,\u201d says Hannah. \u201cShe takes them very well.\u201d<\/p>\n As Schreck, Combs must shift between the playwright\u2019s teenage persona, her adult self, and Combs\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hannah says all three are up to the play\u2019s considerable challenges. As for doing a show in \u201can 86-year-old theater that never did theater before,\u201d she\u2019s happily dealing with that challenge, too. And she\u2019s excited about the potential impact of \u201cConstitution.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people might have conflicted feelings about the 250th Anniversary,\u201d she acknowledges. \u201cThis play literally opens and inspires conversation, whatever that may be.\u201d<\/p>\n Tickets to \u201cWhat The Constitution Means To Me\u201d 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.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cPlease don\u2019t let these things happen’\u201d<\/p>\n LAB Executive Director Owen Robertson<\/p>\n Conversations will very likely abound after audiences see \u201cThe Cross and the Saber\u201d<\/a> at LAB Theater Project<\/a> (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\u2019 religious preferences and the Trump White House backing Christian prayer rallies on the National Mall, LAB\u2019s description of the play\u2019s milieu sounds distressingly plausible: \u201ca near-future America where nationalism and religion have fused into a weapon of political control.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI made the decision to do this show last summer,\u201d says Robertson. \u201cWe weren\u2019t in the chaos we\u2019re in now. Now I\u2019m sitting on a show that every day is more topical and more prescient than it was before.\u201d<\/p>\n In Graf\u2019s 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\u2019s \u201cnot guilty\u201d plea, explaining, \u201cAll our data says you should plead guilty,\u201d and the grand jury system has been completely automated to speed up the process.<\/p>\n However, says Robertson, \u201cWe don\u2019t want the play to come off like we\u2019re preaching. Yes, we\u2019re holding up a mirror, but Wendy does a good job injecting humor\u201d into the proceedings. The trial, he says, \u201cdescends into theater of the absurd.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 \u201cHippie\u201d Griswold, Cameron Rovillo, and Holly Marie Weber as the prosecutor. \u201cWe asked her to give us her very best Pam Bondi behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 Mart\u00ed-Parisi round out the cast as, respectively, a Fox TV host, a cross-wielding judge, and a disembodied Alexa-type voice.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s The Great Leader. But we never see him except on The Great Leader channel, which plays all the time.<\/p>\n Could happen. But, as Robertson says, \u201cPlease don\u2019t let these things happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Tickets are $31 for Lab Theater Project\u2019s \u201cThe Cross & The Saber\u201d running July 2-19 in Tampa.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cToday, we haven\u2019t moved far beyond the challenges women faced in the 1960s.\u201d<\/p>\n Meg Crane, inventor of the home pregnancy test<\/p>\n At Powerstories Theater, Jennifer Blackmer\u2019s \u201cPredictor\u201d<\/a> (July 17-26 at Stageworks<\/a>) 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\u2019s rights to privacy and bodily autonomy. (These so-called \u201cpenumbral\u201d rights figure prominently in Heidi Schreck\u2019s Constitutional debates, too.)<\/p>\n And whaddya know: The test was invented by a woman, Meg Crane, in 1967. Powerstories\u2019 Executive Artistic Director Clareann Despain discussed Crane\u2019s discovery in a recent interview with Maggie Duffy and Jana Henson, co-hosts of Tampa Bay Arts Passport\u2019s new podcast \u201cThe Peanut Gallery.\u201d<\/p>\n Crane was a graphic designer for the pharmaceutical company Organon, hired to pretty up the packaging for women\u2019s cosmetics. Her office, Despain said, was located in a small building on the company campus nicknamed \u201cThe Rabbit House.\u201d 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\u2019d kill the rabbits and examine their ovaries to see if the pregnancy hormone in the urine had caused the rabbits to ovulate.<\/p>\n Crane, sitting upstairs in her office listening to the rabbits scream, decided there had to be a better way.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cShe happens to see how the test is done,\u201d says Despain, \u201cand she\u2019s like, \u2018Oh that\u2019s crazy simple. How do we get it in the hands of women at home? She realizes it\u2019s not a science problem, it\u2019s a design problem, and she can solve it with her skills as an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n Which she did, but not without resistance from the men who ran the company, who insisted a home test would raise moral questions. \u201cAnd she\u2019s like, \u2018Well, really, it\u2019s a finance question,\u2019 says Despain. \u201cIt\u2019s just about getting it out there.\u201d<\/p>\n Crane is grateful to Blackmer and Powerstories for bringing her story to life. \u201cI 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\u2019t moved far beyond the challenges women faced in the 1960s.\u201d<\/p>\n Like the plays mentioned previously, \u201cPredictor\u201d may deal with serious issues, but it also promises to be funny. Promo materials describe the play as \u201can 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.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s 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\u2019ll also be taking part in a pre-show Zoom at Powerstories Studio on June 28 at 4 p.m. It\u2019s a free event, but RSVP is required<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tickets are $22-$37 for Powerstories\u2019 \u201cPredictor\u201d running July 17-26 at Stageworks in Tampa.<\/a><\/p>\n Pitch in to help make the Tampa Bay Journalism Project a success.<\/a><\/p>\n Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0BlueSky<\/a><\/p>\n Recent Stories<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\u201cMaybe there\u2019s problems, but what it will lead to is more surveillance of people by law enforcement, and we don\u2019t need that.\u201d\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tThe nearly 10-acre private island is accessible only by boat or helicopter.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t This article appears in June 25 \u2013 July 01, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n \t\t\t![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/lab_promo_cross_saber.webp\")
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