Despite receiving a massive amount of positive press from the mainstream media and a number of Tony Award nominations, Hillary Clinton’s feminist musical, Suffs, is suffering at the Broadway box office. That makes some degree of sense, as it is a nearly three-hour-long musical about the suffragette movement, which limits its popular appeal.
In fact, data from The Broadway League shows that the play, which features a cast comprised of only women and gender “non-binary” performers, played to only 81 percent capacity last week. That was a marginal improvement over the week before, when it played to an even more dismal 78 percent capacity, which is not particularly good for a Broadway show, particularly one with so much press.
That is particularly true as this is Broadway’s peak season, as it is just a month before the Tony Awards and the play has been nominated for several such awards, something that theoretically would mean that crowds would be larger and plays more full than normal. Further, adding context, a new musical on Broadway, Lempicka, Breitbart News reports, decided to close after it played to 83 percent capacity.
Further, Fox News Digital, reporting on the play, noted that in playing at only 81% capacity across its eight performances in the week, put it in the bottom eight productions in its category and the bottom 23% of all of Broadway’s 35 shows during the week.
Hillary, promoting the play on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” said, “In this election year, we need a lot of joy to be honest. Going to see how the struggle finally ended for women to get the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment is not only a thrilling experience because of the extraordinary work that [Taub] has done in bringing this piece of history to life in such an entertaining way, but it’s so relevant today.”
Further, Clinton, who became a producer of the show after the director wrote to her in late 2022, said that storytelling as done in the play is “a big part of politics,” saying, “I was surprised and touched that Shaina had written to me, and then I started to think, storytelling is a big part of politics and it’s a big part of what we have to do a better job of in our country.”
She continued, speaking about “progress,” and said, “We have to tell the story of our past, but we also have to tell the story of where we are right now and what we want for the future … [Taub] has a line which says progress is possible, not guaranteed … you have to fight for the future now, you can’t just hope it’s going to turn out well.”
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Suff’s website describes it by saying, “It’s 1913 and the women’s movement is heating up in America, anchored by the suffragists — “Suffs,” as they call themselves — and their relentless pursuit of the right to vote. Reaching across and against generational, racial, and class divides, these brilliant, flawed women entertain and inspire us with the story of their hard-won victory in an ongoing fight. So much has changed since the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment over a century ago, and yet we’re reminded sometimes we need to look back, in order to march fearlessly into the future.”