All the ‘Rage
Maya Keleher as Alice Paul and SUFFS Company
“How long?” is the question at the heart of “SUFFS,” playing at the Aronoff Center for the Arts through Sunday, May 17.
Aronoff Center for the Arts
650 Walnut St.
Now through May 17
May 13, 7:30 p.m.
May 14, 7:30 p.m.
May 15, 7:30 p.m.
May 16, 2 and 7:30 p.m.
May 17, 1 and 6:30 p.m
The Tony Award-winning musical about the fight to win the right to vote for American women is a must-see. Get tickets for this limited engagement by Broadway in Cincinnati. And ladies, take your sister, niece, best friend, and most importantly, a man, to see this one!
The musical opened on Broadway in 2024, and though you not know all the songs, but powerhouse vocals from the entire cast, but especially Maya Keleher, Marya Grandy, and Danyel Fulton, make it all instantly memorable and poignant.
“SUFFS” is a charming history lesson wrapped in a stirring score, exploring the passion of first (and second!) wave feminists. The show looks at the fight for civil rights through the stories of Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell. But the central conflict – other than against the true enemy of those opposed to women’s rights! – is the struggle between Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt.
Catt’s National American Woman Suffrage Association, working from the foundation established by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, took a more “slow and steady” approach to suffrage and women’s rights. Paul took a more radical approach, organizing marches and protests, forcing other women and men to take a stand.
Many of the lyrics, while telling tales of the past, touch on topics still relevant today. Talk of tyranny, racism, and the rights of women long ignored are still with us. But, like the closing song urges, “Keep Marching.”
– Tricia Suit