Alice Paul

Who is Alice Paul?

Alice Paul is a young activist impatient with the slow, cautious tactics of the established suffrage movement, and she breaks away to form her own organization built around marches, pickets, and direct confrontation with those in power. Her single-mindedness makes her an effective organizer but also strains her closest relationships, including her partnership with fellow activist Lucy Burns.

Over the course of the show, Paul's certainty is tested by imprisonment, public backlash, and disagreements within her own movement, particularly over its treatment of Black suffragists like Ida B. Wells. Her arc traces the cost of political conviction as much as its rewards.

Alice Paul's role in Suffs

Alice Paul is the lead role of Suffs, carrying much of the show's book and score, and she was originated by Shaina Taub, who also wrote the musical. The role demands a performer who can anchor both driving political anthems and quieter moments of doubt, while aging the character across the several years the story spans.

Audiences remember Paul for her refusal to compromise, a trait the show treats with real ambivalence, admiring her resolve while showing how it isolates her from allies. Taub's writing for Suffs won her the 2024 Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score.

Alice Paul on stage vs screen

Broadway compared with Iron Jawed Angels, HBO's 2004 film of the same history

Shaina Taub wrote Suffs and originated Alice Paul herself, Off-Broadway in 2022 and on Broadway in 2024, winning Tonys for the show's book and score. On screen, Hilary Swank played Alice in HBO's 2004 film Iron Jawed Angels, which covers the same campaign, including the Silent Sentinels picketing the White House and the hunger strikes at Occoquan Workhouse, where the prisoners were force-fed.

The musical carries Alice's story further than the film. In the song Insane she tells prison staff she will accept being called insane if it lets her keep fighting, and a closing scene set in the 1970s shows an older, still active Alice meeting a young activist named Robin.

Alice Paul: frequently asked questions