A musical about the suffragette movement lands on Broadway with Hillary Clinton and Malala on the production team. Signed by Shaina Taub and directed by Tony nominee Leigh Silverman, Suffs had previously been staged off-Broadway, but from April 18 it will welcome audiences to the Music Box Theater with the blessing of the former Secretary of State, former First Lady and two-time nominee for the White House, and the Pakistani activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize ten years ago.
"We are over the moon to have them both on the team," said Jill Furman and Rachel Sussman, the two managers of the musical which stars Tony winner Nickki James as African-American investigative journalist Ida Wells: "Hillary and Malala are powerful role models who have inspired millions of people around the world with their rigorous campaigns for gender equality."
The musical is set in 1913 at the time of the first women's march on Washington, many in white, led by a woman riding a white horse. At the center of the show is the battles of the suffragettes to allow women the right to vote: an objective at the center in Italy of C'è Ancora Domani by Paola Cortellesi and which in the USA was achieved only with the 19th amendment which came into force in 1920.
The two famous interested parties are enthusiastic: for Hillary, whose husband Bill is publishing a new memoir, Citizen, on the years following the eight years in the White House, the musical "which talks about the never before praised heroines" of the suffragette movement" belongs rightfully on Broadway", while for Malala, who was slashed in the face for fighting for girls' right to education in Pakistan and who saw the show last year at the Public Theater, "many women still in the world they are still fighting for equality."
Hence the importance of "drawing strength from the stories of the women who came before us".
For Hillary, making her debut as a producer on Broadway, the message is above all political in a red-hot election year like 2024: "Any reason to talk about the importance of every vote, why it took so long for women to be able having their say and why we shouldn't ignore the power of our vote are all very important messages", said the woman who could have been elected president in 2016.