NEW YORK ― The storyline of “Suffs: The Musical” is centered around Alice Paul, the early 20th-century suffragist who fought for passage of the 19th Amendment that gave American women the constitutional right to vote.
The existence of “Suffs: The Musical” is centered around Vermont native Shaina Taub, the early 21st century creative whirlwind who not only wrote the book, music and lyrics for the Broadway show, she stars in the lead role.
Like Paul, whose character she portrays, Taub is a dynamic force who gets things done, someone who not only burns the candle at both ends but finds new ends to burn. Her fire, it seems, never goes out.
“Suffs” opened Thursday, April 18 on Broadway. The musical is Taub’s formal introduction to Broadway, but for the past decade she has been building her theater career in New York toward this moment.
Working with Elton John on 'The Devil Wears Prada'
Taub was creating “Suffs” when in 2018 she started working with Elton John on a musical version of “The Devil Wears Prada” that is due to be staged this year in London. She had already been lauded in the New York theater world with musical renditions of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” and the Obie Award-winning “As You Like It.” She became known to many Vermonters for her role as one of The Fates in the 2016 off-Broadway production of “Hadestown” by fellow singer-songwriter and Vermont native – and eventual Tony Award-winner - Anais Mitchell.
Taub’s rise to Broadway began simply with roles in Lyric Theatre in Burlington, Stowe Theatre Guild and The Valley Players in her hometown of Waitsfield. That her Broadway debut is backed by producers including former presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai testifies to the confidence the highest-profile theater scene in the world has in Taub’s abilities.
Making “Suffs” happen is a major accomplishment for Taub. That “Suffs” is more than two hours of high-energy entertainment, head-expanding history lessons and, just possibly, a touchstone arriving at the perfect moment in American culture makes Taub’s achievement nothing less than astounding.
Alice Paul meets Ida B. Wells
In a 2019 conversation with the Burlington Free Press over lunch in her Brooklyn neighborhood, the then-30-year-old Taub spoke with dismay at how the women’s suffrage movement has been one of American history’s under-told stories.
“The things I’m learning about and was just writing this morning, it’s just stuff I had no idea about until a producer sat me down in my mid-20s and told me about it," Taub said of her in-progress, then-untitled musical. "I was like, ‘I’ve been this girl hungry for this stuff, looking everywhere for it, and it didn’t reach me. Who is it reaching?’”
The Free Press attended an April 13 evening preview performance of "Suffs" at the Music Box Theatre on West 45th Street. "Suffs" represents Taub's effort in part to make sure future generations of young women know fully the stories of the nation's suffragists.
Early in the production that’s set primarily in the late 1910s, a young Paul (portrayed by Taub) encounters veteran suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt (Jenn Colella), who chafes at Paul’s direct activism that she worries will undercut her years of more conservative, patient work. Catt wants to pursue suffrage in a “lady-like fashion.” Paul sings brashly that “I want to know how it feels when we finally finish the fight.”
Taub, with magnetic and commanding ebullience, quickly establishes Paul as the hero of “Suffs.” She’s an imperfect hero, however; Paul offends Black journalist Ida B. Wells (Nikki M. James) by suggesting Black women should march in the rear of a planned rally to avoid upsetting the suffrage movement’s Southern supporters. Paul’s stubbornness during a prison hunger strike risks not only harm to herself but to the cause she so passionately pursues.
From the 19th Amendment to the ERA
“Suffs” not only includes women as producers (Clinton, Yousafzai, Jill Furman and Rachel Sussman), the musical features a female director (Leigh Silverman) and an all-female cast. The actors include women portraying President Woodrow Wilson (Grace McLean) and the suffrage-sympathetic administration official Dudley Malone (Tsilala Brock).
Wilson is portrayed as a commedia dell’arte-style buffoon (“Suffs” conveys its serious messages with plenty of humor) who acts as though he supports women but really wants nothing to do with suffrage. The president stonewalls the movement but capitulates abruptly to supporting suffrage once it becomes politically expedient. The moment Wilson does turn around leads to the most exultant moment of “Suffs,” as the bulk of the cast sings about letting the fire rage. That moment at the April 13 evening performance practically brought the house down, or more aptly burned the house down with sustained applause and cheering.
“Suffs” pays scant attention to Paul’s predecessors in the suffrage movement. Susan B. Anthony gets a shoutout, but the musical overlooks icons including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone. The reason for that is understandable: How could Taub or anyone compress decades of pre-19th Amendment suffrage advocacy into a coherent evening’s entertainment? In truth, though, Paul accomplished her work by standing on the shoulders of giants.
The musical nears its end as Paul works late in life to advocate for an equal rights amendment and recoils at the forward nature of a young ERA activist before realizing that’s exactly who she was with Carrie Chapman Catt half a century earlier. That scene touching upon the never-passed ERA ends “Suffs” with the suggestion that struggles for women’s rights are ongoing.
The topics of gender and racial equality so prominent in the 1920s continue to permeate social issues in America in the 2020s. While “Suffs” serves as a hugely entertaining history lesson – much as the long-running “Hamilton” continues to do a block away in midtown Manhattan – Taub’s musical also feels like it is precisely about the times in which it is being staged.
The final song in “Suffs” conveys that timelessness in its message and title – “Keep Marching.” It’s almost certain that Taub, with Broadway stardom finally at hand, will keep on marching as well.
If you go
WHAT: “Suffs: The Musical” with book, music and lyrics by Waitsfield native Shaina Taub
WHEN: Opened April 18
WHERE: Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St., New York
INFORMATION: www.suffsmusical.com
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.
