Even earlier than she started writing the musical “Suffs,” Shaina Taub wished to create a mission that might stand as a testomony to ladies’s empowerment.
The New York actor and composer was at work on a gender-swapped adaptation of the Robin Hood legend in 2014 when she obtained a duplicate of Doris Stevens’ “Jailed for Freedom.” Printed in 1920, the ebook is a first-person account of the ladies’s suffrage motion and the ratification of the nineteenth Modification to the U.S. Structure, which acknowledged ladies’s proper to vote.
It was then, Taub mentioned, that the seed for “Suffs” was planted.
“I’d been looking for a narrative a few group of women working collectively, taking over a system,” she instructed JHB in an interview. “This was precisely what I’d been searching for.”
“Suffs,” now enjoying at New York’s Music Field Theatre, makes Taub the second lady in historical past and the primary in over 50 years to write down the ebook, music and lyrics for a Broadway musical during which she additionally stars. (The primary was Micki Grant, who in 1972 starred in her musical “Don’t Trouble Me, I Can’t Cope.”)
Taub portrays suffragist Alice Paul, who finds herself at odds with an institution activist, Carrie Chapman Catt (Jenn Colella), regardless of their shared mission of convincing the U.S. authorities to grant ladies the vote.
Paul recruits a ragtag group of younger suffragists, together with Lucy Burns (Ally Bonino), Inez Milholland (Hannah Cruz) and Ruza Wenclawska (Kim Blanck), to stage a march on Washington amid Woodrow Wilson’s presidential inauguration with the goal of pressuring him to help a federal modification for suffrage.
After an off-Broadway run in 2022, “Suffs” opened on Broadway in April to principally optimistic evaluations. By then, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist Malala Yousafzai had signed on as producers.
Later this month, many members of the musical’s forged — composed totally of feminine and nonbinary actors — are set to carry out on the 2024 Tony Awards, the place the present is nominated for six awards, together with Finest Musical and Finest Authentic Rating. On Thursday, the “Suffs” forged recording was launched digitally on Atlantic Information and captures all 36 of the musical’s songs ― together with the comedic “Women,” carried out by actor Grace McLean as Wilson, and the rousing “Maintain Marching” ― in pristine high quality.
So far as musicalized depictions of U.S. historical past go, “Suffs” has been in contrast by some critics to “Hamilton.” Each musicals premiered off-Broadway at New York’s Public Theater, and like “Suffs,” “Hamilton” additionally starred its composer and ebook author, Lin-Manuel Miranda, in a principal position.
“My hope was to mannequin being a full multihyphenate for women, which I really feel is an unquestioned avenue for male creatives,” Taub mentioned, concerning the Miranda comparisons. “It was thrilling for me to do what I really like, which is carry out in one thing I’ve created, and present to the various women and youngsters within the viewers that, yeah, you are able to do this, too.”
Bruce Glikas through Getty Pictures
As for a way “Suffs” will likely be obtained over the long run in America’s divisive political local weather, she added, “It’s tough to consider the foreboding nature of the subsequent 5 months, however I hope that listening to concerning the historical past of activism, and its victories and failures, on this nation may give individuals some vitality on this second.”
Taub’s subsequent mission additionally grapples with ladies’s empowerment, albeit in a much less political approach. She collaborated with Elton John on a musical adaptation of “The Satan Wears Prada,” which is ready to open this fall in London with Vanessa Williams starring as mercurial style editor Miranda Priestly.
“It’s been fascinating working with such a beloved piece of popular culture, since you wish to give individuals what they love and likewise one thing new,” Taub mentioned. “What’s nice in a musical is that you may actually go into the lifetime of a personality. In a film, it’s extra a few close-up on their face.”
Working with John, she added, has been a “surreal” expertise.
“[At first] I used to be like, ‘How am I ever going to stroll right into a studio with a rock legend, a childhood hero of mine, and never lose my thoughts or faint?’” she recalled. “However he gave me an enormous hug and simply handled me like a colleague, regardless of our variations in age, expertise and movie star. He has such a love for songwriting and making music, so we had a kinship.”
