{"id":477916,"date":"2025-12-29T15:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T15:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/477916\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T15:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T15:33:11","slug":"suffs-lead-finds-hope-and-hard-truths-in-alice-pauls-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/477916\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Suffs\u2019 lead finds hope, and hard truths, in Alice Paul\u2019s story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Until she landed the lead role as Alice Paul<\/a> in the \u201cSuffs\u201d<\/a> touring company, actor Maya Keleher<\/a>, \u00a0like many people, knew about two paragraphs\u2019 worth of history about the struggle of women suffragettes to gain the right to vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned about the 19th Amendment,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I knew about Ida B. Wells<\/a> and Susan Anthony<\/a>. I didn\u2019t know about Alice Paul. It didn\u2019t come up in school.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so, for Keleher, rehearsals turned into history lessons, with outside reading about Paul, a Quaker who was born in Moorestown, N.J., and attended Moorestown Friends School, just across the river from Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Paul studied for her undergraduate degree at Swarthmore College, where a dorm has been named in her honor, and earned two advanced degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. She later returned to Moorestown, where she died in 1977 at the age of 92.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had heard about the show,\u201d Keleher said, \u201cbut I didn\u2019t have a lot of historical context.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show, a musical presented by Ensemble Arts Philly<\/a> Jan. 6 through 18 at the Academy of Music<\/a>, got off to a slow start off-Broadway in New York. But in 2024, the Broadway version earned playwright Shaina Taub<\/a> two Tony Awards \u2013 Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical. Hillary Clinton and activist Malala Yousafzai (who will be honored by WHYY<\/a> in April) were producers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned so much about her tenacity and her fight,\u201d Keleher said. \u201cShe was so relentlessly committed to her causes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Danyel Fulton (Ida B. Wells), Trisha Jeffrey (Mary Church Terrell), and Victoria Pekel (Phyllis
Terrell) in a scene from \u201cSUFFS,\u201d which looks at the struggles in securing all women\u2019s right to vote. (Photo by Joan Marcus)<\/p>\n

Paul began her advocacy for women\u2019s suffrage in Great Britain. There, her relentless commitment led to hunger strikes, beatings and multiple stints in prison, where sometimes she was force-fed.<\/p>\n

By the time she came back to the United States, Paul\u2019s work \u2013 and troubles \u2013 in Great Britain were well-known, so her efforts here received headline coverage in U.S. newspapers. Paul and the other suffragettes endured much the same in America, including imprisonment, beatings and force-feedings. Paul led marches in Washington, D.C., and kept up effective lobbying until the 19th Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1920.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we forget how close this history was to us,\u201d said Keleher, noting that her grandmother was born before women received the right to vote. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t that long ago that women were able to get their own credit cards and their own bank accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, back then, there was controversy in the movement, a controversy reflected in \u201cSuffs.\u201d In the struggle to convince the states \u2013 particularly southern states \u2013 to ratify the 19th Amendment allowing women to vote, Black women were sidelined.<\/p>\n

The amendment was no guarantee of the actual ability of Black women to vote. Many states established serious barriers to voting and the vote for Black women wasn\u2019t protected until the Civil Rights Act of 1964<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Keleher said she believes voting rights are endangered these days \u2013 \u201cunfortunately, because of the rhetoric that we\u2019re hearing. I can only hope that it doesn\u2019t go farther than people talking about it, but even hearing people talk about it already makes it a threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Marya Grandy (center) plays Carrie Chapman Catt in \u201cSUFFS,\u201d at the Academy of Music Jan 6-18. (Photo by Joan Marcus)<\/p>\n

Keleher wants the audience to understand that people should never give up the fight for a better world. \u201cWe should dream of a better future,\u201d she said. \u201cThe world we can imagine is the world we should fight for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or as Keleher\/Paul sings in what reviewers have described as a rousing show, \u201cWill you fail or prevail, well, you may never know, But keep marching, keep marching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, she hopes audiences are \u201ccoming away with some aspect of hope, collective hope,\u201d she said. \u201cI think the idea that you are sitting in this room, experiencing the story, and experiencing the emotions, there\u2019s a lot of community in that. There is hope and connection in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

FYI<\/p>\n

\u201cSuffs\u201d<\/a>, Jan. 6-18, Ensemble Arts Philly<\/a>, Academy of Music<\/a>, 240 S. Broad St., Phila. 215-893-1999.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Until she landed the lead role as Alice Paul in the \u201cSuffs\u201d touring company, actor Maya Keleher, \u00a0like…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":477917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[53876,5229,648,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,16966],"class_list":{"0":"post-477916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-academy-of-music","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-arts","11":"tag-pa","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa","20":"tag-women"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115803587919384785","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}