On 1 November 2024, a concrete and steel canopy at a newly reconstructed railway station in the Serbian city of Novi Sad collapsed, instantly killing 14 passersby, with two more succumbing to injuries in the following weeks. Many citizens saw this as the outcome of rampant government corruption and staged silent vigils for the victims. In response to the regime’s violent crackdown on a vigil in front of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, students went into blockade, a protest performance that soon spread to all state universities in the country.

From schoolroom reenactments of the Constitutional Convention to in-Congress readings and Broadway shows, performance comprises a crucial mechanism by which laypeople in the US understand “constitutionality”—the practices, laws, and actions permissible within the US political arena. These performances illustrate that constitutionality is not simply a set of legal procedures and concepts defined by a document, but a cultural field of which legal practices are one pillar. They also clarify how constitutional protections have come to be abrogated in their own name, and urgently call for intervention.