Sep 8, 2015 2 min read

Waynesburg University will hold its sixth annual Constitution Day later this month with a play written and performed by university students.

The university is required to host a Constitution Day to receive government money through scholarships and grants.

The play “Checks and Balances: Factions, Federalists and Freedom” is the feature event at noon Sept. 17 in the Goodwin Performing Arts Center.

The event is sponsored by the Stover Center for Constitutional Studies and Moral Leadership. The play was written by Stover Scholar Andrew Stanko and is a dramatization of the U.S. Constitution’s ratification debates.

“He combines scholarship with wit,” Stover Scholars Director Larry Stratton said. “He has an amazing ability to convey important and big details and events in an accessible way.”

Stratton said the university takes a lot of pride in the way it celebrates the day. Instead of hosting a speaker, Waynesburg University chose to write a play over four years and has been lauded by others for the extra effort.

The production portrays the passions and conflicts between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists as they fiercely debated the merits of the new Constitution created by the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

Faced with the formidable task of persuading the states to adopt the document, three Federalists, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, penned a series of 85 essays in defense of the Constitution.

Collectively, they came to be called The Federalist Papers.

“The play itself sets up all of this into the context of a game show,” Stratton said.

Drawing upon pivotal arguments from three of the most important Federalist Papers essays, 10, 51 and 78, “Checks and Balances” engages the constitutional themes of the “extended republic,” the doctrine of “separation of powers” and the necessity of an independent judiciary.

“We start planning in November for next year’s day,” Stratton said. “I hope people walk away with a better appreciation for our structure.”