Suffs


Suffs is a musical with music, lyrics, and a book by Shaina Taub, based on suffragists and the American women's suffrage movement, focusing primarily on the historical events leading up to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920 that gave some women the right to vote.
The show premiered off-Broadway at The Public Theater in April 2022. It opened on Broadway on April 18, 2024, at the Music Box Theatre, where it received mostly positive reviews from critics. It was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, winning two, for Best Book and Best Score.

Plot

Act 1

At the 1913 National American Woman Suffrage Association Convention, Carrie Chapman Catt gives a speech calling for support for women's suffrage. Alice Paul, exhausted by NAWSA's slow progress, proposes a march on Washington, D.C. on the day of President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration, to pressure him to support a federal amendment for suffrage. Carrie refuses, preferring NAWSA's approach of gaining suffrage state-by-state. Irritated and unwilling to give up, Alice resolves to see equality for all achieved in her lifetime. She recruits her college friend Lucy Burns to help organize the march themselves, and they further recruit socialite Inez Milholland and Polish labor organizer Ruza Wenclawska, and accept visiting Nebraska college student Doris Stevens as their secretary. As the march approaches, Southern delegations object to Black women marching alongside white women in their respective delegations. Not wanting to derail the march, Alice elects to compromise by setting up a separate colored women delegation; prominent African-American journalist and activist Ida B. Wells confronts the organizers to declare her intention to march with her own state delegation, and harshly criticizes Alice for being willing to compromise with the march's Southern backers at the expense of Black women.
On the morning of the march, Ida runs into her friend and fellow Black activist Mary Church Terrell, along with her daughter Phyllis. Ida favors direct actions to draw attention, while Mary prefers an approach of "dignified agitation", working within the system to fight for colored women's rights, which causes a rift between them, though they both march with the hope of uplifting Black voices. The Woman Suffrage Procession faces some violent pushback, but they succeed in completing the march. As the organizers celebrate, Doris expresses distress over having been called a "bitch" by one of the counter-protestors. Alice, Ruza, Inez, and Lucy encourage Doris to embrace this label as a sign of her strength in the face of sexist men. Carrie offers NAWSA's backing to the newly-formed Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, made up of the march's organizers, although she and Alice still disagree on their respective approaches. The CU go to the White House for a meeting with Wilson, who offers them lip service about his condescending and chauvinistic adoration for women, but continually puts off publicly showing support in his first term. A frustrated Alice suggests NAWSA withdraw their support, but Carrie refuses to antagonize Wilson as he has pledged to keep the U.S. out of the war in Europe.
Alice's commitment to the movement takes a toll on her personal and social life, but she tells herself focusing on achieving women's suffrage will be worth the sacrifice. Doris educates Wilson's chief of staff Dudley Field Malone on the movement by offering a hypothetical scenario of her rights if they were husband-and-wife; the two gradually fall for each other. At the 1916 NAWSA Convention the divisions among the Suffs become clear; Mary, an invited speaker, wants to use her speech to highlight race, while Ida points out that NAWSA uses Mary to insulate themselves from being called racist. The CU disrupts the convention by publicly calling for NAWSA to organize against Wilson's reelection, criticizing the slower approach of "irrelevant old fogies" like Carrie. Stunned and offended at having her contributions to the movement brushed aside, Carrie publicly condemns Alice and privately informs her that her actions have no place in NAWSA. With the CU effectively kicked out of NAWSA, Alice founds the National Woman's Party and recruits Alva Belmont, a wealthy socialite and NAWSA donor, to fund it and continue with their anti-Wilson efforts. The NWP plans a campaign tour calling for women in states where they have voting rights to vote against Wilson. Inez tries to take a leave of absence due to exhaustion, but is convinced by Alice to go on the tour. Their efforts to vote Wilson out are unsuccessful and Wilson is re-elected ; to make matters worse, a devastated Lucy returns from the tour with the news that Inez collapsed and died during one of her speeches, having hidden her anemia from the others. Heartbroken, the Suffs hold a vigil for Inez, and resolve to continue in her honor.

Act 2

The NWP organize the Silent Sentinels, standing in silence outside the White House gates until Wilson publicly supports suffrage. When Wilson declares that the U.S. will join the Great War, they hold up banners with his own words printed on them to highlight his hypocrisy, only to be arrested on Wilson's orders and sentenced for the trumped up charge of obstructing traffic. Dudley, disgusted with Wilson and convinced of the cause, publicly resigns. At Occoquan Workhouse, the group stages a hunger strike to protest their arrest, much to the frustration of Mrs. Herndon, the strict but sympathetic prison matron. The group soon falls into conflict as Ruza accuses Alice of trying to get them all killed with her methods, with Lucy and Doris unable to quell the argument. Meanwhile, Carrie continues to back Wilson despite misgivings about his broken promises and treatment of the suffragists in prison. Dudley helps free Doris from prison by posing as her husband and joins the NWP. Mary argues with Ida about publicly condemning the war, as both express their fatigue over constantly fighting for Black women's rights and being ignored at every turn. The strikers smuggle letters out of the prison with the help of Mrs. Herndon, describing the horrific abuse by prison staff; Wilson publishes press reports contradicting the letters. As Alice slowly starves to death in solitary confinement, she is met by prison staff member Dr. White, who threatens to have her committed if she continues striking. A hallucination of Inez confronts Alice, warning she will be no good to the wider movement if she dies. Taking Inez's advice, Alice tells Dr. White she is willing to be called insane so long as it is known she is still fighting for what she believes in, and ends her hunger strike. White is moved by her words and refuses to have her committed, despite Wilson's orders.
Doris leaks the letters to the press, forcing Wilson to free the rest of the strikers. As the NWP burn Wilson in effigy after the war, a frustrated Carrie tells him that his broken promises have alienated even his less-radical base in NAWSA, and that he can easily quell dissent by supporting suffrage and publicly giving the credit to NAWSA. Wilson finally does so, but snidely reminds Carrie they still need enough state legislatures to ratify the amendment. In 1920, on the morning of the final vote for the Nineteenth Amendment in Tennessee, Carrie and Alice run into each other. At first they passive-aggressively blame each other for their struggles, but Carrie has an epiphany when she realizes that she was once the young upstart in the suffrage movement to the more conservative Susan B. Anthony, and that Alice chose the path of forceful resistance that Carrie had left behind. The Nineteenth Amendment vote comes down to a single vote from Senator Harry T. Burn, who is convinced to change his vote from a "Nay" to an "Aye" at the last minute after receiving a telegram from his mother, Phoebe, who reveals that she blames Wilson for her husband's death in the War but lacks the ability to vote against him. Ida and Mary celebrate their success, but sadly agree that Black women will still be prevented from voting, just as Black men; Phyllis encourages them to keep faith that the movement will continue. The other women celebrate the amendment's passing ; as Dudley and Doris plan to wed, Carrie invites her professional and romantic partner Mollie Hay to join her on a diplomatic trip abroad, as they lament that they do not have the freedom to truly live as a married couple.
Alice pitches the NWP's next goal of getting the Equal Rights Amendment passed. However, the entire group is exhausted and decide to quit organizing: Doris plans to publish her memoirs about her experiences in the movement; Ruza wants to act on Broadway. Lucy decides to retire from activism, though she assures Alice she values their shared fight. In the 1970s, an aged but still active Alice meets young activist Robin, a representative from National Organization for Women who seeks Alice's support on radical movements. Alice disagrees with Robin's call for an intersectional approach, preferring the singular focus on the ERA, but is taken aback when Robin accuses her of being behind in her ways and points out how the 19th Amendment didn't make voting easier for Black women. Realizing she has become the "old fogey" that Carrie was to her, Alice accepts she will not live to see the end of the fight for equality, but declares that it will happen one day so long as people maintain their resolve.

Cast and characters

Songs

Act I
  • "Let Mother Vote" - Carrie, ensemble
  • "Finish the Fight" - Alice
  • "Find a Way" - Alice, Lucy, Inez, Ruza, Doris, Major Sylvester, Ida, ensemble
  • "Wait My Turn" - Ida
  • "Terrell's Theme" - Phyllis, Ida, Mary
  • "The March " - Inez, Ida, ensemble
  • "Great American Bitch" - Ruza, Inez, Lucy, Alice, Doris
  • "Ladies" - Woodrow Wilson
  • "A Meeting with President Wilson" - Ruza, Lucy, Dudley, Inez, Doris, Woodrow Wilson, Alice
  • "Worth It" - Alice, Lucy, Carrie, Inez, Ida, Mary
  • "If We Were Married" - Dudley, Doris
  • "The Convention Part 1" - Carrie, Ida, Mary, Alice, Mollie, ensemble
  • "This Girl" - Carrie
  • "The Convention Part 2" - Carrie, Ida, Mary, Alice, ensemble
  • "Alva Belmont" - Alva, Ruza, Lucy, Inez, Doris, Alice
  • "Show Them Who You Are" - Alice, Inez
  • "The Campaign" - Inez, Ruza, Lucy, Doris, Alice
  • "How Long?" - Alice, Lucy, Doris, Carrie, Mary, Ida, ensemble
Act II
  • "The Young Are at the Gates" - Doris, Lucy, Ruza, Alice, Phyllis, Alva, ensemble
  • "Respectfully Yours, Dudley Malone" - Dudley
  • "Hold It Together" - Mary, Mrs. Herndon, Alice, Ruza, Lucy, Doris, Dudley, Carrie, Mollie, Ida
  • "Wait My Turn " - Ida, Mary
  • "The Report" - Woodrow Wilson, Doris, Dudley, Ruza, Lucy, Alice
  • "Show Them Who You Are " - Inez
  • "Insane" - Alice
  • "Fire & Tea" - Mrs. Herndon, Carrie, Doris, Woodrow Wilson, Alice, Ruza, Mollie, ensemble
  • "Let Mother Vote " - Woodrow Wilson
  • "She and I" - Carrie, Alice
  • "Down at the State House" - Harry T. Burn, ensemble
  • "A Letter from Harry's Mother" - Phoebe, Harry T. Burn, Alice
  • "I Was Here" - Ida, Mary, Phyllis, ensemble
  • "If We Were Married " - Dudley, Doris, Carrie, Mollie
  • "August 26th, 1920" - Ruza, Lucy, Doris, Alice
  • "Lucy's Song" - Lucy
  • "Finish the Fight " - Robin, Alice
  • "Keep Marching" - Alice, ensemble