With ‘Suffs,’ Public Theater Is Back in ‘Hamilton’-Style Ticket Frenzy

(Bloomberg) -- If it’s quiet uptown, blame Suffs, a new musical about the arduous path to the 19th Amendment in 1920, when White women secured the right to vote in the U.S.

Even before the show officially opens on Wednesday, feminist Gloria Steinem; actors Sandra Oh, Marisa Tomei, Jonathan Groff, and Leonardo DiCaprio; and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have journeyed to the storied Public Theater in downtown Manhattan to catch it during previews.

Snagging a ticket to Suffs is no easy feat. Eighteen months after its planned fall 2020 debut, Suffs’s extended nine-week run is sold out—and the latest block of tickets were priced at $120, up from $100. TodayTix, which offers $20 rush tickets to Suffs, received more than 15,000 views for the show for the week ended March 27, making it the most in-demand off-Broadway show and the fifth-most-viewed New York show, including proven Broadway hits.

“Shows like Suffs become highly sought-after not just because it’s an amazing production but because experiencing a show in an intimate setting before it becomes a known brand gives theatergoers the ability to say they experienced something special before it makes its way to the masses,” says Emily Hammerman, vice president of theater at TodayTix. 

On resale websites such as Tickpick and StubHub, sellers are asking for as much as $3,364 for the right to spend 2 hours and 45 minutes in the Newman Theater, the same stage where Lin-Manuel Miranda introduced the world to Hamilton. Another option? Spending $10,000 gets you a pair of tickets and the chance to party with Hillary Clinton and Miranda following a performance at the end of this month. The proceeds from that show are being dedicated to Onward Together and Latino Victory Project, both political action organizations.

Suffs is the brainchild of Shaina Taub, a singer, composer, and musician who adapted Twelfth Night and As You Like It for the Delacorte in Central Park. She wrote Suffs’s book, music, and lyrics. She’s joined by director Leigh Silverman and choreographer Raja Feather Kelly in creating this determined, high-energy production.

Rather than Susan B. Anthony, perhaps the name most Americans associate with the women’s suffrage movement, protagonists including Alice Paul (played by Taub), Inez Milholland (Phillipa Soo), Carrie Chapman Catt (Jenn Colella), and Ida B. Wells (Nikki James) are introduced in Taub’s book. The all-female cast tackles male characters such as President Woodrow Wilson and repeatedly asks a question that persisted for generations: “How long must women wait for liberty?” 

In that spirit, How Long? takes the show to a crescendo in the first half, as the ensemble peppers the audience with questions that thrust ongoing injustices front of mind. “How many more marches in the streets? How many more efforts gone to waste? How many more deafening defeats? How many more histories erased? How many more dignities deferred? How many more ‘told to know our place’? How many more girls will go unheard? How many doors shut in our face? How many more Joans burned at the stake? How many more of us will it take?”

The musical’s finale, Never Over, featuring lyrics on loop, appeals to patrons to “keep marching” for equality. The show raises issues that have since been addressed by the Marriage Equality Act and the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, but in the words of Taub, “The work is never over.”

Although most plays that originate at the Public Theater don’t make a transfer to Broadway (Hamilton, Fun Home, and A Chorus Line are famous exceptions), Suffs has strong potential to grow, say industry insiders—in part because of its appeal to a wide range of audiences. “This is a show that’s going to be really thrilling to recommend to schools, groups, and to people who liked Hamilton, which is everyone,” says Nathaniel Hill, the founder and chief executive officer of Broadway Plus, which curates experiences including in-person and virtual events featuring Broadway stars. Already, his VIP concierge division–which travel agents and others tap–has received requests from as far as Houston for clients keen to see Suffs. “Sometimes we struggle to find a show that’s a reliable recommend, but Suffs is shaping up to be just that.”

“There’s a lot of star power in the show,” adds Hill, who works with Suffs actors Colella, a 2017 Tony Award nominee for her role in Come From Away, and Hannah Cruz, who played Eliza in the first U.S. tour of Hamilton and is next set to appear in the revival of 1776, which will also feature an all-female cast.

Sandra Dooley, 74, flew to New York from Vermont to see Suffs on the night of April 2. She paid $400.95, including fees, for her ticket. “I really love it—it’s fabulous for people to learn this story," said Dooley, a member of the Vermont Suffrage Centennial Alliance  (a volunteer organization that describes itself as “committed to informing Vermonters of the history and outcomes of women’s suffrage and engaging them in the ongoing quest for equal rights and citizenship”). “I’ll be interested to see what happens with the show—whether Broadway producers think it’s worth investing in,” added Dooley, wearing a facemask emblazoned with the Suffs’s key cause: “Votes for Women.”

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