The musical Suffs tells the riveting, complicated, devastating story of how women in the United States got the right to vote. With a book, music, and lyrics by Shaina Taub, the musical explores the events leading up to the ratification of the nineteenth amendment of the United States Constitution.
Nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Suffs is the first Broadway musical to be written, produced and starring all women. Two of those women include Suff’s producers Hillary Clinton and Malala Yousafzai.
A key element of the show’s origin story has to do with what our textbooks and schools have taught many of us about the suffragists, (or “Suffs”), which is very little.
In her high school history class Suffs producer Rachel Sussman was given the assignment to write about an event in 20th century American history. She picked women’s suffrage. What she discovered in her textbook was maybe a paragraph of details.
“There was so little available in my textbook,” says Sussman. “Most people learn about Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Seneca Falls. And that’s about where it starts and ends.” But Sussman, a pre-teen at the time, knew there had to be more to it.
So she began her quest for more details. “I was obsessed with these women and their stories which were dramatic and compelling.They were picketing the White House. They went on hunger strikes,” she says. She read Jailed For Freedom, Doris Stevens’ firsthand account of the fierce battle for equality and was riveted.
Cut to several years later. Sussman, who became a respected theater producer, was consistently wowed by Shaina Taub, a prolific singer, composer, musician and performer.
“I saw her perform her own work as a songwriter at Joe’s Pub and Rockwood Music Hall and kept connecting so deeply with her musicality and the fact that she was really interested in telling an authentic story about women. Sussman thought, I know a story about women that I think really needs to be told.
During a dinner meeting Sussman asked Taub if she knew about women’s suffrage and handed her Jailed For Freedom. Taub stayed up all night reading the book, unable to put it down.
“It read like a thriller. I could not believe what these women had done. I had no idea that women were the first American citizens to do a mass mobilization in Washington and to picket the White House,” says Taub. “They were thrown in jail for doing that. They went on hunger strikes and were force fed. They had this relentless pursuit for the right to vote. I couldn’t believe I had never learned about it.”
By 5:00am the next morning Sussman saw that Taub wrote one word in her email’s subject line. “Yes.”
The body of the email was, “We have to do this.” From then on the duo were committed to Suffs and bringing it to the stage and they joined forces with producing titan Jill Furman (Hamilton, In The Heights, Freestyle Love Supreme, Drowsy Chaperone).
As Taub explains for her entire life she had always been hungry to tell a story like this. But what struck her most and made her want to make it a musical, was that she recognized herself in these women, “I recognize my friends—a group of stubborn, cool, oriented girls who find their sense of joy in getting shit done,” she says.
“We’re a group of women who feel almost alive when they’re taking on a really hard challenge together. I thought, that’s my kind of girl. And as a musical theater obsessed kid growing up in the middle of Vermont, I would have loved to have a show about these women.” So over this past decade Taub was fueled to make a musical for the next generation.
On April 18 Suffs opened on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre. (The show was originally developed and produced at The Public Theater.) Directed by Leigh Silverman, and choreographed by Mayte Natalio, the cast of 17 features Nikki M. James as Ida B. Wells, Jenn Colella as Carrie Chapman Catt, Grace McLean as President Woodrow Wilson, Hannah Cruz as Inez Milholland, Kim Blanck as Ruza Wenclawska, Anastacia McCleskey as Mary Church Terrell, Ally Bonino as Lucy Burns, Tsilala Brock as Dudley Malone, Nadia Dandashi as Doris Stevens, Emily Skinner as Alva Belmont/Phoebe Burn and Taub who plays Alice Paul.
“Hopefully with this show, it will never be an issue again for kids who are looking for stories about women’s suffrage,” says Furman. “They will know who these people are.”
Key for Taub and the creative team was not to shy away from the painful parts of the suffragist movement. In order to appease their Southern supporters African American suffragists like Ida B. Wells were told to march in back. “One of the first four songs that Shaina ever wrote was Ida B. Wells’ song, “Wait My Turn,” says Silverman. “It has always been built into the DNA of the show. And it’s important for us that we’re not just showing the triumphs, but the flaws of these people.”
For Nikki M. James who plays Ida B. Wells leaning into these hard truths was necessary. “Our nation is complicated. And I say this with deep love, but it’s very hard to tell a story about shifting political times in our country without talking about racism, misogyny ad how the women who were equal right activists were not necessarily fighting for equal rights for all,” says James.
As James points out, in addition to African American activists Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell, there were also women of Asian descent and those of Mexican and Spanish heritage who were fighting for women’s right to vote. “There were so many unbelievable women who were saying, ‘don’t forget about us,’” says James. “I’m happy Shaina included that.”
While it takes a planet of people to make a musical Taub is at the very heart of Suffs. “She is one of the best contemporary musical theater lyricists writing today. Her melodies are incredible and she has created all these gorgeous songs that have so much to say and contain so much heft, but she can do it with humor and lightness when it’s warranted,” says producer Jill Furman. “Her music does the magical thing that music does. It goes straight to your heart and then spreads over your whole body,” adds Silverman.
Consider Taub’s galvanizing song, an anthem to where we have been and what is possible.
“Keep marching, keep marching
‘Cause your ancestors are all the proof you need
That progress is possible, not guaranteed
It will only be made if we keep marching, keep marching on.”