Show guide
Suffs
Suffs dramatizes the final push for women's suffrage in America, following Alice Paul and a new generation of activists as they clash with the old guard over how to win the vote.
- Broadway premiere
- 2024
- Music by
- Shaina Taub
- Genre
- Drama
- Setting
- 1910s
Suffs: quick answers
What is Suffs about?
- Suffs follows Alice Paul and a young generation of American suffragists who clash with the movement's cautious leaders as they march, picket the White House, and go to prison in the fight to win women the vote through the Nineteenth Amendment.
When did Suffs open on Broadway?
- Suffs opened on Broadway on April 18, 2024, at the Music Box Theatre and played until January 5, 2025, winning Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Original Score. It first ran Off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 2022.
What kind of musical is Suffs?
- Suffs is a historical musical with an original score, and Shaina Taub wrote its book, music, and lyrics. It mixes drama with comedy, and its cast of women and nonbinary actors also plays the men, including President Woodrow Wilson.
Where and when is Suffs set?
- Suffs is set mostly in Washington, D.C., from 1913 to the 1920 ratification fight in Tennessee, with a closing scene in the 1970s.
Is there a Suffs movie?
- The Broadway production was filmed for PBS's Great Performances and aired on May 8, 2026. HBO's 2004 film Iron Jawed Angels, starring Hilary Swank as Alice Paul, dramatized much of the same history two decades before the musical.
The story of Suffs
Suffs is set in the 1910s as the fight for the Nineteenth Amendment reaches its climax. Alice Paul, a young and impatient organizer, breaks from the mainstream suffrage movement led by Carrie Chapman Catt to form a more confrontational wing, staging marches, pickets, and protests aimed directly at President Woodrow Wilson.
Alongside Paul, the show follows Lucy Burns, her closest ally and co-founder of the National Woman's Party, Inez Milholland, the movement's glamorous public face, and Ida B. Wells, the journalist and activist who challenges the movement's willingness to sideline Black women for the sake of political expediency. Suffs traces the personal costs and moral compromises behind a hard-won political victory, and it does not shy away from the movement's internal racism.
The music and the makers
Suffs was written by Shaina Taub, who composed the music and lyrics, wrote the book, and originated the leading role of Alice Paul. Taub's score mixes contemporary pop, folk, and musical theatre balladry, giving historical figures a modern, conversational vocal style rather than a period pastiche.
The songs function as arguments as much as anthems, letting characters debate strategy and generational divides in real time. That approach gives Suffs a distinctive, talky energy, closer to a political drama set to music than a traditional book musical, with its ensemble numbers built around competing points of view rather than pure spectacle.
Suffs on Broadway
Suffs opened on Broadway in April 2024 at the Music Box Theatre, following an earlier Off-Broadway run at The Public Theater in 2022. Shaina Taub starred as Alice Paul, and the production was produced by a team that included Hillary Rodham Clinton. At the 2024 Tony Awards, Suffs won for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score.
The show arrived as part of a wave of Broadway musicals reexamining American history through figures left out of the standard narrative, and it drew particular attention for centering women's political organizing and for confronting the suffrage movement's own history of racial exclusion rather than glossing over it.
Suffs: frequently asked questions
When did Suffs open on Broadway?
Suffs opened on Broadway in April 2024 at the Music Box Theatre.
Who composed Suffs?
Shaina Taub wrote the music, lyrics, and book, and originated the role of Alice Paul.
What is Suffs about?
Suffs follows Alice Paul and a new generation of suffragists as they fight for the Nineteenth Amendment in the 1910s, clashing with older movement leaders over strategy.
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