Why touring ‘Suffs’ in Philadelphia under Trump is a ‘radical act’

Broadway playwright, composer, and actor Shaina Taub knows the power of theater to make a political statement. As an enthusiastic teen in Vermont, Taub staged a teach-in to protest the Iraq War at her high school — a bold move inspired by the anti-war musical Hair.

About a decade later, when she was approached to write a musical about the suffrage movement, Taub recognized another meaningful opportunity to blend activism with theater.

The one challenge: She was pretty unfamiliar with the American women who fought for the right to vote.

“I really didn’t know anything,” Taub said.

She was stunned, but her feelings turned into frustration as she concluded that her American public school education had been seriously lacking. “I was blown back by the scope of this history,” she said.

That fueled her to create Suffs, the hit musical about the suffrage movement centered on South Jersey Quaker activist Alice Paul, a radical and charismatic organizer played fittingly by Taub herself in the Off-Broadway and Broadway runs.

After premiering in 2022 at New York’s Public Theater for a sold-out run — following the trajectory of another history musical box-office success, Hamilton — Suffs opened on Broadway in 2024. It went on to earn six Tony Award nominations.

Taub took home two, for best book and best score, making history as the first woman to win in both categories independently on a night where Hillary Clinton, a Suffs coproducer, introduced Taub and the cast.

Now in its first North American tour, Suffs has landed at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music this week (running through Jan. 18) to help kick off a year of events commemorating the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. The musical graces the same stage where suffragist Susan B. Anthony once spoke some 150 years ago advocating for the right to vote.

Though mostly set in Washington D.C., Suffs has some local shout-outs, too: The show mentions Swarthmore College, where Paul studied before pursuing her master’s at the University of Pennsylvania, and Bryn Mawr College, where President Woodrow Wilson (Suffs’ main antagonist) once taught history and politics.

On opening night at the Academy of Music, director Leigh Silverman nodded to Philadelphia’s history in the suffrage movement, mentioning the protests Paul organized at Independence Hall, only a mile away, and across the city.

“The suffs you met tonight, and the many, many others … were here in Philadelphia, and they remind us of our collective strength and what is possible when we stand up and fight, despite how far it might seem like we have to go, or for how long we have to keep marching,” she said.

Taub echoed that sentiment in an interview.

She believes the tour has been especially significant to stage under President Donald Trump following his policies canceling millions in federal grants for arts organizations nationwide and targeting historical institutions (particularly in Philadelphia) to alter the information they present to the public about slavery.

“This is the first year of Suffs being performed under this president, and [it feels like] a radical act to get together in the theater and tell these stories,” Taub said.

She added that it feels acutely meaningful to see the show in Philadelphia as the city reflects on the nation’s history for America 250 this year.

Though the actor/playwright grew up in Vermont, she saw shows in Philadelphia as a kid when she visited family in South Jersey; her mother, Susan Taub, was raised in Cherry Hill, just a few miles down the road from Paul’s childhood home in Mount Laurel.

Today, it serves as the location of the Alice Paul Center for Gender Justice.

Despite her connections to the region, Taub admitted that she has not yet visited Paul’s home. She plans to march over there soon.

“Suffs.” Through Jan. 18, Academy Of Music, 240 S. Broad St. ensembleartsphilly.org