Suffs the Musical with Tony Award Winner Shaina Taub, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act

0:00 The writer of the writer of Suff's the musical.

0:03 Sorry to bring you in as we are just finding out

0:04 that the voting rights act has been overturned by the court,

0:07 but this seems like Yeah.

0:09 Really interesting timing to have you on.

0:11 Speaking of voting rights.

0:12 Speaking of voting rights,

0:13 you wrote a whole musical about the suffrage movement.

0:17 Uh crazy.

0:19 Yeah, I was just following along as well.

0:21 I mean, it's it's we're still fighting these battles 100 years later, right?

0:26 Yeah.

0:27 And at the time that you wrote So, tell folks a little bit about you

0:30 and writing Suff's and then we'll get into kind

0:32 of how the issue of race was an issue even in the women's rights movement.

0:36 This idea of wait your turn and and all of that.

0:38 Absolutely.

0:39 I mean, yes, I was in my mid-20s and the producer Rachel Sussman

0:45 approached me and asked me what I

0:46 knew about the American women's suffrage movement.

0:49 I'd gone, you know, I grew up going to public school in Vermont,

0:52 was lucky to get to go to college and I

0:54 never I sort of realized in that moment I knew nothing.

0:56 I only knew Susan B.

0:58 Anthony had her face on a coin and she sent me down this, you know,

1:01 decade-long rabbit hole of doing this research and writing

1:03 the show and learning all about so many things I

1:06 never knew that American women were the first citizens

1:09 in this country to stage a political march on Pennsylvania Avenue,

1:12 the first American citizens to protest a grievance outside the White House,

1:16 were thrown in prison,

1:17 all these all these things that are so that I that I had never learned.

1:21 Yeah, so the the musical Suff's that was on Broadway and now

1:25 is touring the country and is about to air on PBS.

1:27 We were able to film the production tells, you know,

1:29 just one slice of a multi-generational story specifically about

1:34 the lead-up to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

1:38 I saw it on Broadway.

1:39 I did get to meet you after.

1:40 I was so overwhelmed that I was extra weird.

1:45 [laughter] I laughed, I cried like from a place that I

1:48 didn't even know I could access watching this musical.

1:50 People need to watch Suff's on PBS.

1:52 It's just it's a really for as difficult a topic as it was for you to tackle,

1:57 you really hold the audience in a space

1:58 of gentleness while also challenging the things

2:01 that they didn't know or before and and it's

2:04 quite this scene especially hit me hard

2:07 where they're talking about the young are

2:09 at the gates and as we're trying to get

2:12 young people involved in politics and in civil

2:14 rights protecting what's left of them now, this song really really resonates.

2:18 Can you talk about writing this song and and what it meant?

2:21 Sure.

2:22 Thank you so much.

2:22 I mean, yeah, the young are at the gates is a phrase.

2:24 It's you know, a song in the show now, but I can't take credit for that phrase.

2:28 It was written by a suffragist named Lavinia Dock and yes,

2:30 they held on their banners when they protested outside the White House,

2:34 which every single day from for over a year in 1917,

2:38 American women stood outside the gates of the White House in the freezing cold,

2:41 in the rain and during taunts and threats

2:43 from the public and the press and to And Wilson.

2:46 And Wilson.

2:48 Let's not forget.

2:49 There's so there's so much to say.

2:50 But yeah, it and hard.

2:52 This younger generation of suffragists and it's as we know,

2:55 the young people are always at the forefront of these movements.

2:59 And they they knew that they needed to they they I think

3:02 they really introduced the idea

3:04 of visual rhetoric into American social movements.

3:07 You know, pageantry, costume, choreography.

3:10 They all wore white to stand out in black

3:12 and white photographs and photographs were new at that point.

3:15 You see here Inez Milholland marching atop a white

3:17 horse down that parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in 1913.

3:22 They she they understood the power of the image to tell

3:25 the story and the power of narrative and that's yeah,

3:29 I think what was so theatrical about their protest language.

3:33 And not to like spoil it for many people, but Alice Paul is featured.

3:38 She's the main character of the show,

3:39 the the suffragist Alice Paul who you got to play.

3:43 Um how much of the musical is real versus what exactly happened in real life?

3:48 Every character in the musical is a real woman who lived,

3:51 but I think, you know, as a dramatist, as a as a playwright,

3:54 it's my task to humanize a character from history, to imagine them,

3:59 their inner emotional life that you may not find

4:01 in a history book or a test textbook or museum.

4:04 So, the events and the people are real,

4:06 but I think the emotional life I had to give myself permission

4:09 to invent because my hope is people come sit in a theater,

4:12 we all gather together and get connected on a human level in a way

4:17 that I hope when people leave the show after they watch it on PBS,

4:20 it excites them about looking up all

4:22 the amazing books and learning more about the history,

4:24 but it was it was my I strove to try to get you connected emotionally.

4:28 You certainly did.

4:29 Um the friendship that developed between these women,

4:32 I think is something that I took with me after

4:34 the show and through the music and made me, you know,

4:37 really want to go out there and find who's going

4:39 to be your group that you ride with, that you

4:42 take care of, that you go to jail with if it if it turns out to be that way.

4:46 Thank you.

4:46 I appreciate that and that's the thing I think people, you know,

4:49 it's this time people think, you know, what's the point of marching?

4:51 What's the point of getting in the streets?

4:53 And I think part of it is the the social proof that people in your community,

4:58 your area also feel strongly about a better future

5:01 and and that you share values and that you're

5:03 willing to get out of your house and walk

5:05 down the street and stand in public and say so.

5:08 It's it's it's it gives you some faith.

5:12 It gives you a sense of you find you find your people,

5:15 you find your community and that I think

5:17 is is is still an essential part of activism.

5:19 Joshy is saying here also the showcasing of black women in the movement and what

5:23 they went through was a really powerful thing

5:25 that often we don't get in the stories.

5:26 I mean, I live up here in Rochester, New York.

5:28 It's all about Susan B.

5:30 Anthony.

5:30 That's all that anybody wants to hear about,

5:32 but you were really able to put forth on the stage Ida B.

5:35 Wells and other folks.

5:36 Can you talk about what building this out was like?

5:39 Oh, yeah.

5:39 I mean, it's hard to overstate just how significant Ida B.

5:43 Wells in this photo also pictured, you know,

5:45 in the musical but with Mary Church Terrell and her daughter Phyllis Terrell.

5:49 These were luminaries,

5:50 titans of social movements throughout the late 19th and early 20th century.

5:54 I truly hope, you know, they're they're characters in Suff's,

5:57 but they just each deserve nine-season prestige

6:00 each TV series all about their lives.

6:01 There's so much more to the story and so many women I can't include

6:05 didn't have time to include in just the one brief two and a half-hour segment.

6:08 Right.

6:09 But yeah, I mean, we you know,

6:10 my the my focus in the show is the internal conflict within

6:15 a movement cuz I was more dramatically interesting to me of how

6:17 do people who purport to want the same ends differ on the means

6:21 and how do we see time and again specifically in social movements,

6:25 feminist movements, but any social movements the white

6:27 folks uh prioritize themselves and and believe the fiction

6:32 that they will they will get freedom before anyone

6:35 else and we see that time and time again.

6:38 So, it was really important to me to depict

6:40 that in the show of Alice Paul specifically,

6:42 her racist blind spots and that she asked women to march

6:45 in the back of a parade and uh you know,

6:48 I sort of imagined an encounter between Alice and Ida that I don't know if,

6:52 you know, to your point earlier, I don't know if historically that happened.

6:54 We don't necessarily know,

6:55 but it felt um dramatically essential to include that.

6:59 And Alice Paul comes into modern life even.

7:02 I mean, it's not when you watch most of the show, it's like the 1920s,

7:05 early 1900s, but Alice Paul lives well into what we would consider modern life.

7:10 She lived until 1977.

7:11 She lived to see that second wave.

7:13 She's the author of the ERA.

7:14 She wrote it in 1923 and of course didn't live to see it pass.

7:18 So, a lot of the show is also about that generational torch passing, right?

7:22 We None of us are going to live to really

7:23 see these fights finish as we saw the ERA, you know,

7:26 being cut it today and yet we still have to run our leg of the race

7:31 and almost the better job we do as activists or as people or as parents,

7:36 you know, whatever it is in life, the better job we do,

7:38 the more the next generation will outgrow us.

7:41 And so, it's sort of part of that for Alice

7:43 Paul to begin the show as this young upstart, but then by the end, you know,

7:47 as a second wave feminist comes in and she's now the the older one.

7:51 Right.

7:53 Amanda, you had a question?

7:55 Oh, no, I was just going to point out when you had

7:56 the photo of uh Wells up from the show, it was those women,

8:00 those black women that made the white members

8:03 of Congress hesitant or um refused to pass

8:09 the amendment initially because the Southern senators did not

8:12 want black women to vote in the South specifically.

8:16 So, the reason that, you know,

8:17 it isn't necessarily that Congress was terrified of the voice of the women,

8:22 although that is uh certainly part of it.

8:24 Uh specifically, they were terrified of the voice of black women.

8:26 Black women.

8:27 Absolutely.

8:28 That's 100% correct, of course,

8:30 and many white suffragists used that as an argument of, "Oh,

8:34 it'll only be the white women.

8:35 Don't worry.

8:36 You can still use Jim Crow and all these other,

8:38 you know, racist mechanisms we've seen over the last century." So,

8:41 it's it's really thorny and and I think often

8:45 times these social movements can get oversimplified and reduced.

8:50 You know, oh, just these feminist heroes who were bold and great

8:53 and strong and they did it real quick and that was it.

8:55 No, these were flawed people,

8:57 everyday people with the same They were not made of gold and bronze.

9:03 They were made of flesh and blood like we are.

9:05 And so, I think it's I I I

9:06 hope that it's more instructive for future generations

9:09 to understand that that these that these issues were

9:13 just as thorny and complicated as they are today.

9:15 I loved how you portrayed Woodrow Wilson as such

9:18 a clown because he is He's Amanda's least favorite person.

9:21 So, we talk about Woodrow Wilson a lot.

9:24 The worst.

9:25 [laughter] Just the worst human.

9:28 He sort of gets remembered or given credit because, you know,

9:31 ultimately he capitulated and did come out in favor of the amendment,

9:35 but a little bit too little, too late.

9:36 And to Amanda's point, um he knew even though he came out and this is depicted

9:41 in the musical in front of Congress saying, "You know, pass it.

9:43 Pass it.

9:44 If I know how much stronger these women's hearts will beat

9:47 if you give them this thing." That was a direct quote.

9:50 But then he knew he knew full well uh that this even if it passed Congress,

9:55 it would need to be ratified by 36 states and the southern

9:57 states would never pass it to your point because of racism.

10:01 So, it was sort of he just wanted to in my view,

10:04 he just wanted the the accolades for you know, it's all performative, right?

10:09 Coming out.

10:10 You know, I felt whatever, I guess this is a political show.

10:13 Like I sort of felt that way when Biden on his way out the door was like,

10:16 "The ERA should be passed." I was like,

10:18 "Performative to the like great that's all talk, no action.

10:24 gosh.

10:24 That's like Michael Scott standing in the off.

10:26 I declare bankruptcy.

10:27 That's not anything, bro.

10:28 That's not anything.

10:30 It's not enough.

10:30 It's it's insufficient.

10:32 Yeah.

10:32 It's insufficient and uh during that time,

10:36 it was leaked to me that he was going to sign the ERA,

10:40 that he was going to like sign it and push it forward.

10:43 And they gave the interview to Midas Touch, got the last interview with Biden.

10:46 I had the second to last interview with Biden,

10:48 which is kind of odd to let the ERA go to the men

10:51 interviewing and not me if that's what it was going to be,

10:53 but whatever, you know,

10:54 we're all happy that it what And then he just said the ERA

10:57 is the law of the land and it is what it is.

10:59 And then Kirsten Gillibrand came out in a white suit

11:01 and gave a speech being like, it is what it is.

11:03 I felt like they tried to make fetch a thing

11:05 and it happened and it was it was one

11:08 of the most just grading and intolerable things that happened

11:12 towards the end of the Biden presidency and was devastating.

11:15 But back to white boys we appreciate Mr.

11:18 Harry T.

11:18 Burn.

11:19 Oh, what a cutie.

11:20 And Tommy.

11:21 Republican member.

11:23 Yeah, man.

11:23 Can you talk a little bit about this fella

11:24 and how he was helpful to the movement?

11:26 Cuz you know, there's some good white boys out there.

11:28 You can't make this stuff up because [clears

11:31 throat] like I was talking about that ratification campaign,

11:33 they still had to get 36 states to ratify it.

11:35 It all came down to a 36th state and this Tennessee state legislature

11:39 called a special session to vote on whether or not to ratify the amendment.

11:43 If they ratified it, it would be to the law of the land actually,

11:46 not just in a performative way.

11:48 And the eve of the vote, we didn't we as in the suffs didn't have the votes.

11:53 The anti movement, which is a whole 'nother story that oh my god,

11:57 I hope someone writes a musical about that cuz that is interesting.

11:59 But they had more votes and they were down by one

12:03 and they thought they were going to lose after all of this.

12:06 It was all going to come down to this one single state senator.

12:08 They were going to lose.

12:09 And Harry T.

12:09 Burn had planned, this young senator, I think he was like 24 years old,

12:13 youngest state senator in the bunch, and he had planned to vote.

12:16 He was an anti, which means that he had a red

12:19 rose on his lapel for who's going to vote against suffrage.

12:21 There's him there that in calling the vote,

12:24 the speaker of the house in Tennessee,

12:25 you know, calling each vote, yay, nay, counting them.

12:28 They get to Burn and a mailman comes

12:32 in and delivers a telegram to Senator Harry T.

12:36 Burn from his mother.

12:39 Uh imploring him to vote for suffrage.

12:43 Like doesn't that sound so contrived like if I wrote it in the show,

12:47 you'd be like, "Okay." But happened.

12:49 And I was so moved and and then he voted yes after be his his the appeal

12:54 to his conscience from his mother worked for suffrage and the world was changed.

12:59 You know, and to me I depict that in the show

13:01 because it was so moving to me that yes,

13:03 all these remarkable extraordinary women of the time,

13:06 flawed to be sure, but extraordinary in the sense

13:08 that they were out there fighting for the movement,

13:10 not necessarily you know, playing their typical gender roles.

13:15 That is who the show is mainly about, but at the end of the day,

13:18 it was a mom in rural Tennessee in what we would,

13:21 you know, classify now as like a red state who

13:25 did [snorts] what she could to raise a feminist son.

13:28 You know, and that that's important, too.

13:31 Didn't he have to escape out a window after that vote?

13:33 I believe he got like chased.

13:35 Yeah.

13:35 Um yeah, totally.

13:36 Like I agree.

13:38 At great cost to himself, he he did this, but yeah,

13:41 that was Phoebe Burn, his mom.

13:43 It's a beautiful song in the show as well.

13:45 Um Power of moms.

13:46 I would be doing the same thing.

13:47 You better vote.

13:48 I'm going to come down there.

13:50 Totally, totally.

13:52 Now, there's another part of the suffragist

13:54 movement and we don't call them suffragettes,

13:56 I learned from your show also because that's a condescending term.

13:59 A lot of folks don't know that.

14:00 It's sort of like it's it's different in the British movement,

14:02 but in America like it was sort of a diminutive,

14:05 you know, just like, "Oh, those little suffragettes." You know,

14:07 no one was calling them abolitionettes.

14:09 Like it's sort of [snorts] So, they suffragist was sort of the proper term,

14:13 but then the shorthand that they used was suffs.

14:15 Right.

14:16 Some of the stories that I I think also go

14:20 untold are that there is a lesbian story within here also.

14:24 Like Carrie Chapman Catt was a lesbian and they they don't talk about

14:30 that in your history books because that would

14:32 get you banned from the Moms of Liberty.

14:34 But how how important was it to sort of shape that out for people?

14:38 It was just true.

14:39 Molly Hay, yeah, they're they're buried side

14:41 by side in the Bronx and they were together,

14:43 you know, Carrie Carrie Chapman Catt married twice, was widowed twice.

14:47 Um and then spent the rest of her life with Molly.

14:50 Obviously, they were you know,

14:51 we didn't have these terms then, but they were closeted.

14:53 They weren't out, but it was just true.

14:56 So, it just fell into those human relationships

14:59 feel like the stuff of drama to me.

15:00 So, it did I had no question about whether to include it.

15:05 It was wonderful and I was really grateful that you also

15:07 had a a queer woman play the role in Jen Colella, which was fantastic like

15:13 she's like greatest representation and the coolest ass person that's ever lived.

15:17 I totally agree.

15:18 Yeah, she's amazing.

15:19 Um so, I'm going to pull up a picture

15:21 of Carrie and Molly and they're cute little dogs.

15:25 Like of course they're lesbians.

15:26 Look at them and their fur.

15:27 Who doesn't love this?

15:28 But they were they were sort of like you know,

15:31 we see this a little bit with MAGA lesbians lately.

15:33 People who are like, "No,

15:35 I want to align myself with men in the movement and power and even

15:39 if I it costs me like my sisterhood with other women or other queer people,

15:44 I'm I'm still going to be a MAGA lesbian because something about that makes

15:47 me feel like I'll get something even if other people don't get it,

15:50 too." And I thought that was an interesting dynamic you played with, too,

15:52 where they're constantly and because like you said, it was true,

15:56 talking about the tension between new people who are like,

15:58 "No, there is actually room for all of us to get everything,

16:01 not just the most elite white women." And them being like,

16:05 "No, tradition says wait your turn, slow down." Totally.

16:09 Totally our thinking that the only strategic way to get

16:12 any political or social advancement is through an incremental approach.

16:16 You know, the part of it to me like

16:17 the provocation I hope of the show is that like look,

16:21 I'm never advocating for a racist approach,

16:24 but just assuming out a bit from what you said, but increment you know,

16:27 the the classic dichotomy of incremental change versus radical burn it all down.

16:33 I I think like you need both.

16:35 You need the young storming the gates and it's

16:37 not always divided along generational lines, but you you know,

16:40 older folks are playing politics behind the scenes and you

16:42 need a combination of things to get things done.

16:45 But that aside, we it's I hope it's you know,

16:48 the the systems of power in this I'm not saying anything original here,

16:50 but the systems of power in this country

16:51 would much rather marginalized groups blame each other,

16:54 push each other out of the way to get

16:55 in line than unite and turn our focus towards them.

16:59 So, Do you worry at all that you're getting typecast now?

17:06 [laughter] Here you are playing Emma Goldman in Ragtime.

17:09 [laughter] It's my niche.

17:12 What can I say?

17:12 Historical musicals are my Roman Empire.

17:14 I it's I'm not making allegations here.

17:16 I just love it.

17:17 I mean Ragtime, you know, that I'm in.

17:18 So lucky to be a part of this beautiful

17:19 revival at Lincoln Center that tells I mean, I don't even know where to begin.

17:23 Just a incredible multi-faceted story from the turn of the century.

17:29 The Ragtime was the show that I grew up with that got

17:31 me excited about learning about history as a kid in Vermont.

17:34 You know, that was my what I latched onto.

17:37 So, for me suffs, I would never have written suffs without Ragtime,

17:40 without that inspiration.

17:41 And I hope that this was you know,

17:43 it's like a delivery system for history for for folks

17:46 that I think is just it just more dynamic than other ways.

17:50 We have um a claim to Emma Goldman here in Rochester.

17:54 Like we try to claim her cuz she lived

17:55 here with her sister for like 2 days or something.

17:57 It was like not long, but we're like, "She's from here.

18:00 She's from here." And she's like, "No, I'm from Chicago,

18:03 I'm not from Rochester." But we try to claim

18:06 her up here in Rochester in the Seneca

18:08 Falls area where all of these kind of things were happening and and going on.

18:13 I have a question from a teacher actually if you if you don't mind.

18:16 We pulled the audience and said,

18:18 "What would you want to know?" And folks want to know

18:21 how much civil disobedience went into writing suffs or helped shape it.

18:26 That's from Tommy Simenetti at Central Connecticut.

18:29 In my own ex- Do you think he means like in my own experience?

18:32 I think he means in your own experience.

18:33 Did you have like some kind of like um you know,

18:37 interest in government and civics that drove you to writing this musical

18:40 and how much did that play into it or or not?

18:43 I've I've always had a deep interest in activism.

18:46 My first the first protest I organized was like a teach-in about the Iraq war,

18:52 anti the anti obviously, in like 2003 at my local movie theater in Vermont

18:56 and we served pizza and we called it peace-a pizza, but like peace, get it?

19:01 Hey!

19:02 I don't know.

19:03 I've just always kind of I think been drawn to that.

19:04 You know, in Vermont where I grew up,

19:07 there's like a local 4th of July parade and I used to love

19:11 it so much and I only sort of realized as an adult,

19:14 I loved it because it was a protest.

19:15 It was like the local librarians dressed up as banned books

19:19 or the local nurses like dressed up as uteruses for repro rights.

19:23 Bernie Sanders marches in it every year.

19:25 And there's just something to what we were speaking about before,

19:27 just the I feel connected to the community and being a part of those faces

19:33 and just doing doing whatever I can to show

19:36 up and then involved here in the city.

19:38 I'm in a group called Resistance Revival Chorus that sings

19:40 at a lot of these actions and um [snorts] I yeah,

19:44 I feel when I that's how I People are like, "Where do you find hope?

19:47 Where do you find?" I'm like being in the streets, being out with people,

19:50 standing up, screaming like the I like I favor in-person activism.

19:55 It's just like what I I look for those those spaces a lot.

20:00 Um another question doesn't have to do with your historic work.

20:03 Uh folks want to know who would win in a badass duel,

20:06 Olivia from Twelfth Night or Rosalind from As You Like It?

20:11 [laughter] Oh, Rosalind, sorry.

20:12 Totally.

20:12 Got to be, right?

20:14 Not a fair fight, yeah.

20:15 What would you like to be miscast in?

20:17 What's something that you would never get cast in but that you would love to do?

20:21 I want to play Mark in Rent.

20:23 Ooh.

20:24 Oh.

20:24 I can actually see that, though.

20:25 Well, thanks.

20:26 I mean, yeah, those do a gender flip Rent for the 30th anniversary.

20:29 I love I mean, I'm a Rent Rent and Ragtime were my two big,

20:32 you know, I was total Renthead kid.

20:34 I would love a gender flipped Hamilton.

20:36 Oh, totally.

20:37 Hell yeah, love that.

20:38 That'd be a good one.

20:38 Skyler brothers, okay.

20:40 Oh my god, but they have to wear the dresses.

20:42 Yes, and Peter.

20:43 They still wear the dresses, the costumes stay the same.

20:47 Um you talked about Rent and Ragtime.

20:51 What year were you born?

20:53 1988.

20:54 Okay, so I'm 82 and I feel like this really changed our lives as people

20:57 and did you How much of this cuz you also are a Stage Door Manor alum,

21:02 also, which we love.

21:04 Great school, great training.

21:05 Um my wife's cousin is an associate producer out there,

21:08 Maggie, so shout out to Maggie.

21:10 Um how much are theater kids having

21:13 a moment right now with everything we've learned about

21:16 empathy and performance and propaganda and the need

21:20 for hope at the end of a show.

21:21 I think of like Hadestown.

21:22 People see that show nine and 10 times and every

21:24 time they do believe it could turn out different.

21:26 Like, what is the power of theater in a country that feels adrift?

21:31 What a great question.

21:31 I mean, for me, I think like musicals

21:36 are a lot like democracy because they require participation.

21:41 And like the school play is such a beautiful

21:43 breeding ground for democracy because it's problem-solving as a group,

21:47 working towards a goal that is bigger than eat any individual person,

21:51 collaborating, everyone literally getting a place

21:54 in the spotlight, being represented.

21:56 I mean, it it it's just such a and musical American musical

22:01 specifically are these like sort

22:02 of Talmudic storytelling projects over generations, right?

22:04 There's no other um art form I can think of where we all literally

22:09 rehearse and try on and inhabit these stories over and over and over again.

22:14 Um we we tell them to our to ourselves

22:17 and especially stories about our own country.

22:20 You know, it's like and it's not something I think we can take for granted

22:24 right now in our country that we are still allowed to gather in a public hall,

22:29 in a theater, in a cultural center and tell uh uh complicated,

22:36 honest story about the shortcomings of our own

22:40 history and not be arrested for it.

22:42 There are countries you can't do that and like we can still do and I think it's

22:45 why the Trump administration attacks Why do you think

22:48 they attack uh NPR and the Smithsonian and PBS?

22:53 Because I think they know how powerful storytelling is.

22:57 They know that narrative makes us feel powerful

23:01 and we're hearing our about our ancestors' successes

23:04 in terms of people power get puts ideas

23:07 in our head about what we might accomplish.

23:08 They don't want that.

23:10 Mhm.

23:10 They know and that to me is their tell.

23:12 So it's like why why I think we need

23:14 to be fighting for our our stages and our our broadcast

23:18 channels and our our museums to be able

23:21 to continue telling these stories without fear of reprisal.

23:24 Do you have an idea for the next musical that you want to write?

23:27 I'm writing Yeah, actually it's um going to debut

23:30 next season at the Huntington Theater in Boston.

23:32 I'm adapting uh the memoir Unorthodox Okay.

23:35 by Deborah Feldman about uh a woman

23:38 who left the Hasidic Satmar sect in Williamsburg.

23:42 Yeah.

23:44 Oh.

23:43 It's so yet another like deeply thorny I

23:46 think I just like go something sounds intense, I I I run towards it.

23:51 I need to write like just like a light fluffy comedy,

23:54 which I would love to do as well, but [laughter]

23:55 We'll just get you in like the last five years one time or something really fun,

23:59 just singing your heart out.

24:00 about it.

24:01 It's a it's a very Yeah.

24:02 Well, you seem really drawn to I I don't know you as a person,

24:06 but you seem very drawn to these stories of people

24:08 who form their adult identities around justice and like sanctuary,

24:12 just even if it comes into conflict

24:14 with how they were raised to conceive of themselves.

24:16 Yeah, that's a I really appreciate that, yeah.

24:19 Never thought about that way and I love it.

24:20 Yeah.

24:21 Well, we've got Suffs coming to PBS on May 8th.

24:25 You can watch it as part of their Great Performances.

24:28 I was lucky enough to see it on Broadway.

24:29 It's coming to tour in Rochester.

24:30 I'll be watching it here, too.

24:32 It's a great show.

24:33 You can take young kids to it.

24:35 I would say it maybe like 10.

24:36 What do you think?

24:37 10 and up?

24:38 You know, my six-year-old niece sat through it and loved it.

24:42 So I don't know.

24:42 There's not there's nothing too R-rated.

24:44 There's a little bit of implied violence,

24:46 but I think I we've seen all all ages of kids there, frankly.

24:49 I definitely think if you have high school kids,

24:51 boys or girls or nonbinary or anyone in between,

24:54 it's a really important show and it is that show

24:57 that will stick with them the way that Rent did,

24:58 the way that Ragtime did because you leave and it gives you a directive.

25:02 It says like, "Who will pick up the banner?" Like,

25:05 "Who's going to pick up that protest sign next?"

25:07 And I think you've done such an excellent job

25:09 with this and I'm such an advocate for the show

25:11 and for everybody seeing it and now that it's so accessible,

25:14 you'll be able to watch it on PBS, watch it many times.

25:17 Were you so excited when you got the PBS?

25:19 Oh my I couldn't believe it.

25:20 I mean, it's just so rarely you get this and for me it's,

25:22 you know, I'm so glad we got to do it on Broadway.

25:24 I'm so glad it's happening on tour.

25:25 Tickets are expensive.

25:27 Not every family can like afford to take their family

25:29 to a Broadway show or take their kids and I've

25:32 always been passionate about like increasing access to this and now

25:35 it just makes it anyone can watch it for free.

25:37 Anybody.

25:37 There's no barrier to access.

25:39 So I'm I'm so pumped.

25:41 And it's the original Broadway cast that did it?

25:43 Yeah, that's great.

25:43 Yes, yes, it was filmed in our final month on Broadway.

25:46 Yeah.

25:46 And it will also be available to stream on the PBS Great Performances website,

25:50 I believe through July.

25:51 So it'll be awesome if you can tune in on May 8th, have a watch party,

25:54 but it will it will be up after that if you miss it.

25:56 I will have it on all the time.

25:58 We keep White Christmas on a loop in my house

26:00 because my niece likes the sister song, by the way.

26:04 But it's it's such a great show.

26:05 I'm so glad that you were able to be with us here today.

26:07 Is there anything we didn't ask you that we should have

26:09 asked you about that you want to talk about before you go?

26:12 Oh, you covered so many amazing things.

26:14 Another thing is Suffs Suffs is also can be done in high schools

26:17 and I just saw the first high school production of it last week.

26:19 Yeah, we did you know,

26:20 we did a grant program this past year where hundreds of schools applied

26:23 and we gave we awarded 12 schools completely free licenses to do the show

26:28 and they each each high school that's doing it is pairing it with like

26:31 a civic project in their community or school and it's happening in Alabama,

26:34 Florida, Georgia, like a lot of states that didn't take the tour.

26:38 So I'm really just like heartened to know

26:40 that there are drama teachers in all parts

26:42 of this country that feel like this is

26:43 a story they want to tell with their students.

26:45 Look, as a former theater kid, I'm just glad there's a show that high schools

26:48 could do that have this many female roles, all right?

26:50 Cuz we were always competing for like two or three parts in a show.

26:56 [laughter] Fantastic.

26:58 Thank you both, yeah.

26:59 Thanks for being here.

27:00 Everybody watch Suffs on PBS May 8th and you can keep watching it through July.

27:05 Tape it.

27:06 What Do people still tape things?

27:07 I hope you do.

27:07 Tape it, watch it, share it with people, have a watch party.

27:11 Um and thank you so much for being here.

27:13 We'll see you at your next project.

27:14 Good luck out there.

27:16 Nice talking to you guys.

27:17 Bye, Fran.

27:19 Oh my god, such a cool such a cool chick, no?

27:24 Yes.

27:24 I love cool people.

27:26 Interesting people are the best part of this job.

27:27 I love theater kids.

27:29 I love people who hate President Wilson.

27:34 So easy to hate.

27:35 He's the worst.

27:36 But I think also the musical Suffs um teaches

27:39 you about Wilson in a way that's really telling

27:42 all the way up to the point that maybe

27:43 it was actually his wife that signed that paper, right?

27:46 Didn't he have a stroke and his wife like

27:48 stepped in to make sure that women got the vote?

27:50 Yeah, he had the Spanish flu uh during

27:54 in his second term when that was going around.

27:57 [laughter] And his personality was purportedly like changed quite

27:59 a bit after that and then he had a stroke

28:01 and his stroke completely incapacitated him and she was the president

28:04 for probably eight months at the end of his term.

28:07 Um but he did change I mean change his He changed

28:10 his public stance on the 19th Amendment because states were passing

28:15 their own versions of it and he was not going to win

28:18 re-election because women could vote in a lot of swing states now.

28:21 So he was it was a political calculus.

28:24 He did not actually care.

28:25 In his in his heart of hearts uh suffrage

28:28 was a states' rights issue cuz he was a Confederate.

28:30 So.

28:31 And that's what they're trying to do now.

28:33 So we'll have to We'll have to go over to Scotus blog.

28:36 Katie at Scotus blog is going to tell me everything I need to know

28:39 about what happened at the Supreme Court today with the Voting Rights Act.

28:41 But this this feels um bad.

28:43 This feels like it's a bad one.

28:45 It is.

28:45 And I want everyone to kind of internalize um how

28:49 long John Roberts has been trying to make this happen.

28:53 He when he came out of law school,

28:56 he clerked for Rehnquist and then his first job was

28:58 at the DOJ in the Civil Rights Department for the Reagan administration,

29:02 consulting with the Heritage Foundation about how to gut

29:05 the that section two of the Voting Rights Act,

29:08 which is the case that he decided today.

29:10 So this is a 30-year war that Roberts

29:16 specifically and the Heritage Foundation specifically have been on.

29:19 I will say it looks like they they did not overturn section two.

29:23 They made it much harder to enforce,

29:26 which is the same thing they did in Shelby County.

29:27 So like we'll see how it all shakes out,

29:31 but the marching orders are going to have to be taking over state houses

29:35 in the South because before 2030 because

29:38 in 2030 we'll have another census and everybody's

29:41 going to redraw their maps and they

29:43 will eliminate black voting districts unless we

29:46 hold the state houses and that's hard

29:48 because the state houses are also gerrymandered.

29:50 So if that's the fight, that's the fight from now for the next couple years.

29:55 Does this redistricting stuff that just happened

29:57 is that kind of mean nothing now?

29:59 Uh, no.

30:00 I mean in California,

30:02 California the Supreme Court already didn't take up that case.

30:04 So California stands, Texas is already going to stand.

30:07 Virginia's case is being heard before the state Supreme Court.

30:11 So that that will be probably we'll hear something about that this week.

30:14 Um, De Santis redrew Florida's maps this week under

30:17 the assumption that Cale was going to be decided this way.

30:21 We all knew this was coming, right?

30:22 Like as soon as the Supreme Court took up this case, we knew this was coming.

30:25 I didn't think it was going to come until maybe June, but

30:28 June is usually when they drop their least favorite opinions.

30:31 Yes, cuz they go on summer vacation and they don't want to hear it.

30:34 Um, but uh, yeah.

30:37 So the the redistricting stuff will will

30:38 probably stay as it is through the midterms.

30:41 I know.

30:42 Well, at least there's that I guess.

30:44 But to your point, yeah,

30:45 the call to action is taking over the state state level,

30:48 super local, state level stuff.

30:50 And to your to your point also, they've been doing this for 30 years.

30:53 We're not going to turn this around today.

30:55 This is going to take time to turn around again.

30:57 So long.

30:58 I mean the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 and this has

31:00 been the Republicans battle cry since then since then the whole time.

31:04 Right.

31:04 There are people alive now.

31:05 There are black women alive now who only got

31:07 the right to vote because of that Voting Rights Act.

31:08 Who when they were born could not vote.

31:11 Right.

31:11 And now we are going to return

31:13 to a time when black people's representation is not assumed.

31:17 It is not you cannot safely assume now that if you are a black voter in America,

31:21 especially in the South,

31:22 that you will have proportional representation in Congress.

31:25 Mhm.

31:27 I mean the blue states could respond if the South decimates those black seats.

31:31 Illinois could gerrymander again.

31:33 You know, blue states could fight with fire if they wanted

31:36 to, but it's still it's still not it's still not great.

31:40 It's just not good.

31:42 It's not great, but here here's the thing.

31:44 I we have to be defiant optimists in some level.

31:47 We have to be.

31:48 We have to say if no matter how much they throw at us,

31:51 no matter how many distractions, no matter how much lack of accountability there

31:54 is from these people, we don't give up.

31:57 If they could not give up since 1965 to get into what they got today,

32:00 then we don't give up for the next 30 years to getting it put back together.

32:03 Get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.

32:05 Correct.

32:06 Correct.

32:07 Come on, Robert.

32:08 Or John Lewis, excuse me.

32:09 As down as we ever feel,

32:11 I always think of people who are out there that are helpers.

32:13 I think of you.

32:14 I think of Ms.

32:15 Fraz.

32:15 I think of Sky at Democracy Forward.

32:17 I think of our friends at the Brennan Center.

32:19 I think of there's so many people out there that are doing quiet,

32:23 good, sturdy work to make things better and we have to be defiant optimists.

32:29 We have to.