The Providence Performing Arts Center presents Suffs, the new Tony Award-winning musical that boldly explores the triumphs and failures of a struggle for equality that’s far from over. Starring and written by Shaina Taub, Suffs transforms the story of the suffragists into a kinetic, heart-thudding pageant of ambition, frustration, and moral courage. It’s a historic rallying cry dressed in corsets and banners about the brilliant, passionate, and funny American women who fought tirelessly for the right to vote. Director Leigh Silverman adeptly keeps the pacing brisk yet allows space for reflection.
Suffs — what the suffragists call themselves for short — is set in the early 1910s, more than 60 years after the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Alice Paul, fresh out of her successes in college, has new ideas on ways to get women the right to vote and fearlessly exacts them with gusto. From the first beat, Taub is electrifying in her role as Paul. She commands the stage with fierce intellectual precision and restless energy. Her bright, urgent score thrums beneath each scene, sung with the might of a woman empowered, expressed with a beautiful contradiction of old-world harmonies and modern rhythms. Paul’s a perfectionist, an idealist, and at times, a monumental pain — which we love. No idolization here, just interrogation.
Monica Tulia Ramirez, as the wry and wisecracking Inez Milholland, gallops onto the stage (literally and metaphorically) in flowing white, the audience instantly enthralled. Her charisma is that of a superhero, her voice rich with conviction. When she leads the march, history becomes present tense. Marya Grandy, as Carrie Chapman Catt, offers a nuanced study in pragmatism. Her restrained authority contrasts beautifully with Taub’s revolutionary Paul. The two women circle each other like wary lions, each aware the other’s methods might win – or lose – the war.
Suffs manages to hold tension between reverence and rebellion. Besides generational division within the movement, there’s also racial division. Danyel Fulton’s portrayal of journalist Ida B. Wells delivers one of the night’s most powerful moments. With quiet strength and piercing clarity, she forces both the suffragists and the audience to confront a movement fractured by race and privilege. Her confrontation scene — tense, uncomfortable, and utterly necessary — truly resonates as a vital reminder that progress is seldom pure, or quick. Black women have been pushed to the back, told to “wait their turn,” despite the protests of Wells, in order to keep the Southern White women on board. It’s a conflict this production doesn’t shy away from, addressing it head on.
Taub says, “I think the process of writing the show was a process of accepting the fact that there is no ‘getting it right.’ No one really knows what these women were thinking late at night when they couldn’t sleep and they were obsessing over a worry, or a fear, or a hope. No one knows their inner emotional lives, which is what we go to the theater for.”
Scenic design by Christine Peters is deceptively simple with its banners and shifting mural backdrops absorbing the energy of each scene like a living, breathing thing. The chorus’ fierce, diverse voices embody the spirit of a movement still unfinished. Choreography by Mayte Natalio recalls marches, protests and rallies with a fluid, almost poetic edge that feels right for a modern retelling. Music Supervisor Andrea Grody ensures a tight orchestra and over 30 numbers that showcase the incredible voices of these impassioned women.
By the rousing finale, as voices rise in a swell that feels larger than the theatre itself, Suffs becomes a movement revived. PPAC’s production leaves the audience stirred, unsettled, and thoroughly inspired. This isn’t just theatre that sings; it begs its audience to ponder what rights we still take for granted, and what we’re too silent about. Maybe now more than ever, we need to make some noise!
PPAC presents Suffs through Jan 25. Production contains pyro effects, flashing lights/strobing and theatrical haze. For more information, visit ppacri.org/events/detail/suffs.