Courting Harry Looks at a Friendship Destroyed By the Supreme Court at History Theatre

Courting Harry is my second show of the weekend dealing with constitutional law, which is an odd coincidence, right? Like What the Constitution Means to Me, this play has taken on new meaning in the short time since it premiered thirteen years ago. Several moments land differently now, particularly those dealing with Roe v. Wade, which has been overturned since the play’s debut. Another comes when Warren Burger comments on maintaining decorum and societal standards, things we’ve all watched erode over the past decade.

If you read my review of What the Constitution Means to Me and are worried I’m about to go off the deep end again, I promise I’ll try to stick to the production this time.

Courting Harry, by Lee Blessing, is adapted from Linda Greenhouse’s book on Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun. It focuses on his lifelong friendship with Warren Burger, whom he met in kindergarten in St. Paul. The two remained close for decades, but their relationship soured when they found themselves serving together on the Supreme Court, increasingly on opposite sides of the Court’s decisions.

Director Joel Sass, who also serves as set designer, as he often does at Open Eye Theatre, where he is the Artistic Director, stages the action in a kind of afterlife. Blackmun and Burger narrate the story in the first person, surrounded by shelves of bankers boxes containing everything Blackmun ever wrote. These boxes, which Greenhouse used as the basis for her book, become the source material for the play itself. From them, the two men pull notes, drafts, and letters, reconstructing, and arguing over, the details of their relationship.

It’s an engaging story about two kids from St. Paul who made good and went on to shape American society in profound ways. Pearce Bunting as Warren Burger and John Middleton as Harry Blackmun capture the rhythms of a lifelong friendship, the interruptions, the shorthand, the casual needling, and the deeper tensions underneath it all.

History Theatre once again makes history feel immediate and human by telling it through people rather than just facts. There’s a lingering sense that these men might have wished they’d chosen a different path, one that would have allowed them to remain friends. The play reminds us that Supreme Court justices are, first and foremost, people. They were once children; they have families and friendships; and like all of us, they have made, and lost, relationships over their beliefs.

Courting Harry runs through June 7th at the History Theatre in St. Paul. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.historytheatre.com/2025-2026/courting-harry

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