Maya Keleher and Cast Photo by Joan Marcus

"Suffs" is shorthand for suffragettes (or, more accurately, as Shaina Taub's musical tells us, suffragists, suffragettes being considered a somewhat derogatory diminutive for the movement), women who agitated for the right to vote. Suffs focuses its story on two women who were key to the movement: Carrie Chapman Catt (Marya Grandy), who was president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the premier organization advocating for equal voting rights at the turn of the 20th century; and Alice Paul (Maya Keleher), the young firebrand who upended the staid tactics of NAWSA in favor of a more activist approach to achieving the goal of universal suffrage.

The show opens with the rousing "Let Mother Vote," a cry for equality that is also tinged with the almost apologetic, pleading tone of NAWSA itself: "Won't you thank the lady you have loved since you were small? We reared you, cheered you, helped you when you fell–with your blessing we could help America, as well." Paul, of course, has other ideas, and proposes a march on Washington for the day before Woodrow Wilson is to be inaugurated. In "Finish the Fight," she bares her passion for the coming battle, one that Catt seems unwilling to take on, preferring more polite forms of persuasion. Not Paul, who sings "I don't wanna have to compromise, I don't wanna beg for crumbs." And she won't, ultimately persuading thousands of women from across the country to attend the march, led by fellow agitator Inez Milholland (Monica Tulia Ramirez), who heads the procession astride her white horse, dressed for battle.

Despite the march's success in terms of number and impact, it fails to grab the attention of the president (played in drag by Jenny Ashman), though his chief of staff, Dudley Malone (Brandi Porter), seems inclined toward the women's cause, which will lead to his taking a principled stand in Act 2 with the song "Respectfully Yours, Dudley Malone." To achieve her goal, Alice Paul breaks from her association with Carrie Catt and begins a program of more direct–though non-violent–action, including "Silent Sentinels," in which women from her new organization, the National Woman's Party engaged in acts of civil disobedience such as a months-long vigil at the gates of the White House. This resulted in several of the women being arrested for "obstructing traffic" and sentenced to months in prison, during which they staged an ultimately successful hunger strike.

As we all know, their efforts at obtaining the vote were rewarded, though their next campaign–passing an equal rights amendment–ultimately failed. Suffs is anything but a failure, succeeding on every level. The staging (a massive design by Christine Peters), which uses multiple sliding panels that reach some thirty feet tall, plus carefully chosen roll-on set pieces and one spectacular kabuki drop, reinforces the scale of the task the women have set for themselves. In the halls of power, the panels seem constructed of dark-stained oak or walnut, but in the rather dumpy offices of Paul's fledgling political organization, the walls show obvious signs of decay, and even the suspended lighting fixtures are not fully operational, reinforcing the low-budget bootstrap efforts made by Paul and her cohorts.

Leigh Silverman's direction is top-notch, with scenes flowing with silky smoothness from one to the next, and the passage of time indicated through the simplest of techniques, with Lap Chi Chu's lighting design helping to elegantly establish mood. The choreography by Mayte Natalio is thrilling, with some delightfully Fosse-esque moments and a generally populist energy.

All of this in service of creator Shaina Taub's vision for the show. Taub not only wrote the Tony-winning book and the Tony-winning score (both music and lyrics), she played the role of Alice Paul in the show's first productions, both Off-Broadway and on. The level of talent in one woman (she also created the vocal arrangements and incidental music arrangements!) is simply staggering.

The road company has assembled a first-rate cast, with strong voices from every lead and every member of the chorus. As Alice Paul, Maya Keleher put me in mind of a young Sutton Foster (they even resemble each other a bit), with her glorious mezzo-soprano precisely delivering each perfectly placed note, and her acting positively infused with both youthful passion and charm. Marya Grandy plays Carrie Chapman Catt with a delightfully superior mien that is somehow both authoritative and genteel, and her vocal chops serve as a solid foundation for her regal bearing. As the famed African-American journalist Ida B. Wells, Danyel Fulton does brilliant work in the vital role of reminding Paul (and we in the audience) that the suffrage movement needed to work for the rights of all women–a point which reaches its sharpest tip in her performance of the song "Wait My Turn." You could almost feel the audience being reminded of its white privilege when she sings "You want me to wait my turn, to simply put my sex before my race. Oh, why don't I leave my skin at home and powder up my face?"

Suffs has a relatively brief (three weeks only) run at the Orpheum. Just as the suffragists were done waiting for equality, you should delay no longer in getting your tickets to this thrilling exploration of American history that has been too often overlooked in our culture.

Suffs runs through November 9, 2025, at BroadwaySF's Orpheum Theatre, 1182 Market Street, San Francisco CA. The show plays Tuesdays-Thursdays at 7:00pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm, and Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays at 1:00pm. Tickets range from $59-$274.95. For tickets and information, please call the box office at 888-746-1799 or visit broadwaysf.com. For information on the tour, visit suffsmusical.com.