Stage Review - Suffs (5th Avenue Theatre - National Tour)
Stage Review - Suffs (National Tour)
Presented By: 5th Avenue Theatre - Seattle, WA
Show Run: September 13 - September 27, 2025
Date Reviewed: Friday, September 19, 2025
Run Time: 2 hours, 40 minutes (inclusive of a 15-minute intermission)
Reviewed By: Anna Tatelman
Tackling an entire political movement in one musical is a daunting task, but one that Suffs pulls off brilliantly. Suffs brings the high-value production elements and impressive resources that Broadway is known for while doing something quite unique: giving us a show about a slice of history that many of us are likely know about just on a surface level. It neatly avoids the potential trap of feeling like a history lesson by focusing intently on some of the suffragists involved in the movement and letting us experience their challenges, victories, desires, and fears alongside them.
Suffs is a relatively new musical with lyrics, music, and a book all created by Shaina Taub. The show first debuted at The Public in New York in spring 2022 before transferring to Broadway in April 2024 to highly positive reviews. After closing on Broadway, the show began its national tour this fall in Yakima. This current run at The 5th Avenue Theatre marks the tour’s official opening.
Inspired by the true history of the suffragist movement, Suffs follows some of the crucial events, and the individuals who powered them, leading up to the nineteenth amendment of the US constitution that granted some women the right to vote. We track most closely the movements of suffragist Alice Paul, who is frustrated at the National American Woman Suffrage Association’s slow progress towards its goals. The NAWSA, represented primarily in the show by Carrie Chapman Catt, believes that an adherence to polite and deferential behavior will win women the vote eventually. Unconvinced, Alice and her cohort of other impassioned young women form their own groupcalled the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage that takes more drastic measures, from leading protest marches through Washington D.C. to going on hunger strikes. Prominent Black suffragists, however, namely (within the show) Ida B. Wells, feel that the CU also repeatedly and small-mindedly capitulates in the face of injustice, such as its refusal to give women of color equal voices in the movement.
To summarize all of the history covered in Suffs would take up the rest of my review and then some. Going into the show, I was concerned it would feel more like a history lesson than a musical, but I promptly forgot those worries as I was swept up into the actions, emotions, and struggles of these women. Show creator Shaina Taub is one of those rare people who can brilliantly craft music, lyrics, and scripts, all with a confidence that never veers into self-indulgence.
With Suffs, what she ultimately creates is an incredibleensemble piece. Although we do have a lead character in Alice Paul, we get strong sketches of many other women involved in her or other suffragist movements. We don’t just learn, but become intimately involved, in their desires and fears. We understand why they move through the world as they do, whether they do so brazenly in the pursuit of justice or find a moderate approach that they believe more realistic in achieving their aims, and we sympathize with them even if we don’t agree. And while certainly the conflict between the suffragists and the federal government is depicted (often hilariously, with President Wilson giving them condescending praise without making any attempt to listen), the bulk of the show focuses on the many nuanced, internal conflicts within the suffragist movement. These range from the effectiveness of traditional ladylike behavior as a political strategy, the white women’s refusal to include Black women’s voices in a more than cursory way, and the economic differences inherent to some advocacy approaches (such as if the CU should accept funding from a wealthy heiress). In other words, the root of the show is the women it centers, and their alternatively aligned and distinct political views naturally collide in their struggles alongside and againsteach other.
Like the best musicals (in my opinion, as a disciple of the late Stephen Sondheim), the songs and music in Suffs unveil the characters’ deepest passions, anxieties, regrets, and angers. Most of the songs don’t follow a clear verse/chorus structure, but instead flow as authentic expressions of their feelings in a semi-stream-of-consciousness manner. One of my favorite examples of this is the song “Wait My Turn,” in which Alice grapples with whether it’s possible to both effectively lead a political movement and nurture a family, or if she’d end up resenting her potential husband and children for taking her energy away from her advocacy. The exceptions to Suffs’ generally more flowing lyrics are the songs that take place during the protests or marches, which have frequently repeated lines. But this too feels natural, because it mimics how simple rallying cries get picked up and echoed during protests (or, to quote Sondheim, content dictates form).
This is a tremendously talented cast of seventeen performers, and although there are a few male characters in the piece, every actor in the ensemble is a woman or nonbinary. Maya Keleher plays Alice Paul and fantastically captures Alice’s relentless drive in pursuing the nineteenth amendment. We see how much this character needs her work to survive – not just as her passion, but an escape from too much introspection or guilt. Danyel Fulton as Ida B. Wells threatens to stop the show a few times with her powerhouse of a voice, most especially with her solo “Wait My Turn,” when she asks rhetorically how many times she can be asked to just leave her skin at home for the convenience of the white women’s suffragist efforts. Depicting Carrie Chapman Catt is Marya Grandy, who is believably (yet frustratingly) committed to winning the right to vote through creating a movement made up of docile women who will simperingly vote as their husbands or fathers do. It’s exciting to watch her sweet façade crumble during her solo “This Girl,” where she berates Alice for not respecting how hard Carrie has worked to pave the way for all suffragists. Trisha Jeffrey plays Mary Church Terrell, a Black activist who fought for women’s suffrage and education rights for students of color, and makes the most of her smaller role in this musical, such as in her emotional performance of “Wait My Turn (reprise)” when she worries about being too moderate in her advocacy. Other standout performers include Monica Tulia Ramirez as Inez Milholland, a white suffragist most known for riding down Pennsylvania Avenue on a horse during a protest, who captures Inez’s outspoken nature and zest for life with an easy charm; Gywnee Wood as Lucy Burns, a suffragist and Alice’s best friend, who shows us how personal the stakes of socio-political causes can be; and Brandi Porter as Dudley Malone, an aide to President Wilson, who offers a convincing, sweet arc as her character learns about the injustices women face while falling in love with one.
As this is a Broadway musical, there are a lot of moving pieces with this show, from music to choreography to giant everchanging set pieces. Under Leigh Silverman’s careful direction, all these puzzle pieces coalesce into a satisfying unity, with a pace that knows when to move quickly through the many characters’ actions and when to slow down so we can linger in their anger, fear, or longing. The choreography well-matches each song, from the chaotic movements when angry mobs descend upon the protesters to the cutesy, prim dances performed by the NAWSA that emphasize a harmless femininity (choreography by Mayte Natalio). The set is elaborate (my personal favorite are the Greek columns that descend from the ceiling) and constantly moving, but impressively, there’s rarely any down time for transitions (original Broadway set design by Riccardo Hernandez; tour set design by Christine Peters). The lighting features some fantastic, unique elements, including a flashing effect for when pictures are taken that somehow fills up the whole theatre (lighting design by Lap Chi Chu).
Suffs is the best kind of history-inspired theatre: a musical that presents us a nuanced look at the successes, failures, struggles, oversights, and interpersonal relationships related to this slicefrom the past. It prioritizes telling its audiences a compelling narrative about the suffragist movement over bogging us down with facts. Replete with an amazing cast, high-caliber production elements, and a story that offers lessons about both our history and future, Suffs’ current tour stop at The 5th Avenue Theatre is not to be missed.
The national tour of Suffs closed at The 5th Avenue Theatre on September 27. For more information about the theatre and upcoming shows, visit https://www.5thavenue.org/.
Photo credit: Joan Marcus
