PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — The Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Suffs, about the suffragettes who won American women the right to vote, is coming to the Academy of Music in Philadelphia for the show’s first national tour.
It will be a very full-circle moment in our city’s history and perfectly timed for our nation’s 250th celebration.
“Suffs is a bold new musical about the unsung women who got the 19th Amendment passed so that women got the right to vote,” says Maya Keleher, who plays Moorestown, New Jersey native Alice Paul.
Tony Award-winning composer Shaina Taub wrote the original book, music, and lyrics for Suffs.
“There’s so many lessons to be learned from the Suffs, as we sing in the finale, both from their successes and their mistakes,” says Taub. “The Suffs achieved incredible, massive, structural, Constitutional change.”
Maya Keleher says Alice Paul’s activism continues to inspire women.
“She was this really young, fiery activist who came in kind of towards the end of the movement and really helped push getting that 19th Amendment passed,” Keleher says. “In the show, you see her be this hero, you see her be this activist, but you also see her grappling with her humanity and what it means to lead a revolution.”
When Suffs takes the stage at the Academy of Music, the moment will come with emotional and historical context.
Susan B. Anthony spoke on that very stage multiple times, most notably during the 1872 Republican Convention, advocating for women’s rights.
“It just really brings everything into context in a new way,” says Keleher. “At the end of the show, we talk about how we need to keep marching, and we really tap into that cyclical aspect of activism, how there’s always something to keep fighting for.”
Suffs is on stage at the Academy of Music from January 6 to 18.
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