NEW YORK — Shaina Taub was in the audience for “Suffs,” her lively and timely new musical about women’s suffrage, when she saw something that enchanted her.
It was intermission, and Taub, creator and star, was watching his replacement perform at a matinee preview last week. Suddenly, she saw members of the public searching the Wikipedia pages of key figures portrayed in the show: women like Ida B. Wells, Inez Milholland, and Alice Paul, who not only led the fight for suffrage but also wrote the Bill of Rights Amendment. Equal (not yet law, but that’s another story).
“I was like, that’s my goal, exactly that!” Taub, who plays Paul, said later in his dressing room. “I do everything I can to make you fall in love with these women, root for them, care about them. So it was a really humbling moment to witness.”
Satisfying, but also worrying. The fact is that few members of the public know much about the American suffrage movement. So the all-female creative team behind “Suffs,” which had a top-notch run off-Broadway and opens Thursday on Broadway with extensive revisions, knows they’re starting from scratch.
It’s an opportunity, says Taub, who studied social movements — but not suffrage — at New York University. But it is also a huge challenge: how to educate, but also entertain?
One member of the “Suffs” team has an especially poignant connection to the material. That would be producer Hillary Clinton.
She was, of course, the first woman to win the US presidential nomination of a major party and the first to win the popular vote. But Clinton says she never studied the suffrage movement in school, even at Wellesley. Only later in life did she fill the gap, including a visit as first lady to Seneca Falls, home of the first American women’s rights convention, some 70 years before the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote.
“I became very interested in women’s history through my own work, writing and reading,” Clinton told the Associated Press. And so, upon seeing “Suffs” off-Broadway, “I was moved because it just helps fill a big gap in our consciousness about the decades-long struggle for suffrage.”
It was Taub who wrote to Clinton, asking him to come on board. “I thought about it for a nanosecond,” says Clinton, “and absolutely decided I wanted to help increase this production.” A known theater lover, Clinton describes how she frequently traveled to New York as a college student and sought out discounts, often only seeing the second act when she could get in for free. “For years, I had only seen the second act of ‘Hair,’” she jokes.
Clinton then reached out to Malala Yousafzai, whom Taub had also written to about becoming a producer. As Secretary of State, Clinton met the Pakistani education activist who was shot by a Taliban gunman at age 15. Clinton wanted Yousafzai to know she was involved and hoped the Nobel Peace Prize winner was as well.
“I’m thrilled,” Clinton says of Yousafzai’s involvement, “because yes, this is an American story, but the resistance to women’s rights that is occurring at this moment in history is global.”
Yousafzai also saw the show, directed by Leigh Silverman, and loved it. She is also a longtime fan of musicals, although she notes that her acting career began and ended with a school play in Pakistan, playing a not-so-nice boss. Her own suffrage education was limited to “a page or two in a history book that talked about the suffrage movement in the United Kingdom,” where she moved for medical treatment.
“I still had no idea about the American side of the story,” Yousafzai told the AP. It was a struggle between conflicting personalities and a clash of priorities between older and younger activists, but also between white suffragists and people of color – something the show addresses with the searing “Wait My Turn,” sung by Nikki M. James as Wells, the black activist and journalist.
“This musical really helped me see activism from a different perspective,” says Yousafzai. “I was able to take a deep breath and realize that yes, we are all human and that requires resilience and determination, conversation, an open mind… and along the way you need to show that you are listening to the right perspectives and including everyone in your activism.”
When asked for feedback from the “Suffs” team, Yousafzai said she responded that she loved the show as it was. (She paid a visit to the cast last month and gave a behind-the-scenes tour.) Clinton, who attended rehearsals, jokes, “I sent notes because I was told that’s what producers do.”
Clinton adds: “I love the changes. It takes a lot of work to tell the story correctly – to decide what should be sung or said, how to make sure it’s not just telling a piece of the story, but is also entertaining.”
In fact, the off-Broadway version was criticized by some for sounding too much like a history lesson. The new version feels quicker and lighter, with a greater emphasis on humor – even in a program that details hunger strikes and force-feeding.
One moment where humor shines through: a new song titled “Great American Bitch” that begins with a suffragette noting that a man called her, well, bitch. The music recovers the word with joy and laughter. Taub says this moment — and another in which an effigy of President Woodrow Wilson (played by Grace McLean, in an all-female or non-binary cast) is burned — was a hit with audiences.
“As much as the program has changed,” she says, “the backbone of it is the same. A lot of what I got rid of was like clearing bushes.”
Most of the original cast returned. Jenn Colella plays Carrie Chapman Catt, an old-school suffragist who clashed with young Paul over tactics and timing. James returns as Wells, while Milholland, played by Phillipa Soo off-Broadway, is now played by Hannah Cruz.
Given its parallels to a certain Lin-Manuel Miranda blockbuster about the Founding Fathers, it’s perhaps no surprise that the show has been dubbed “Hermilton” by some.
“I have to say,” Clinton says of Taub, “I think she’s doing for this part of American history what Lin did for our founders — making it alive, accessible, understandable. I hope ‘Suffs’ has the same impact that ‘Hamilton’ had.”
This may seem like a difficult task, but the producers were encouraged by the public reaction. “They’re laughing even harder than we thought at the parts we thought were funny and cheering for others,” says Clinton. A particular joy emerges at the end, when Paul proposes the ERA. “A cast member said, ‘Who would have thought the Equal Rights Amendment would receive applause in a Broadway theater?’” Clinton recalls.
One clear advantage the program certainly has: opportunity. During the off-Broadway run, news broke that the Supreme Court was preparing to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Wade, fueling a palpable sense of urgency in the audience. The Broadway campaign begins as abortion rights are in the news again — and are a key issue in the presidential election, just months away.
Taub has a long-term vision. She’s been working on the show for a decade and says something always happens to make it timely.
“I think,” she reflects, “it just goes to show that it’s always the right time to learn about women’s history.”
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
