Latest / The BSB Podcast / 'Suffs The Musical' Story and Characters | The BSB Podcast
Transcript
- 0:00Do you hear that listeners? The Young are at the gates,
- 0:02meaning only one thing. We're talking about Suffs the Musical on today's episode
- 0:06of the BSB Podcast. But before we dive into the story and characters,
- 0:09like, follow, and subscribe to us at BSB.insider on all social media platforms.
- 0:14Spoiler warning, if you haven't seen Suffs the Musical yet and wish
- 0:17to remain uninfluenced.
- 0:19Pause this video and come back once you shed every tear in your body.
- 0:22Joining us today is a fellow Great American Bitch,
- 0:26Emily Brown. Thank you so much for being here.
- 0:28anytime.
- 0:29So much like our listeners, I'm sure,
- 0:32Emily, you heard about this musical first from the never ending,
- 0:36never ending rants of RJ Miller-Zelinko,
- 0:39is that correct?
- 0:40That is ~ completely correct, yes.
- 0:43Yes, yes.
- 0:44R.J. loved this musical. I mean,
- 0:45we did
- 0:46see it in previews, I will say this,
- 0:47but even before previews, I remember that,
- 0:51I don't wanna say this was the reason we went to New York,
- 0:53but I know that for a definitive fact,
- 0:55the moment that he got his hands on one of the songs,
- 0:58the tickets were purchased for New York so quickly.
- 1:03And then it's just been his personality trait for the past two years.
- 1:07Which isn't a bad thing, RJ. That's not a bad thing.
- 1:09I'm not trying to throw you under the bus,
- 1:11but you did.
- 1:11Not at all.
- 1:12You loved this musical from the inception of you learning about it.
- 1:17Yeah, I don't know why.
- 1:20You don't know why?
- 1:20Like that early
- 1:21on, truly, like when I look back,
- 1:23I'm like, the only reason that I knew this musical even existed was because
- 1:28of Jen Koala.
- 1:30Okay, we're
- 1:30I mean, fair enough.
- 1:31gonna pause for a
- 1:31moment. True, first off, that's a great reason.
- 1:34But second off, RJ, we're gonna pause for a moment.
- 1:36You love history. You love, not just history,
- 1:39you love history that is like the darker side of history.
- 1:44That is like your bread and butter.
- 1:45You wake up and you just feed on that stuff.
- 1:48And this is a story that is, while it is very important and it's very impactful
- 1:51and it ultimately has a good-ish ending,
- 1:54a good-ish in that like some things are resolved here.
- 1:58It is also a really dark time in American history and it was a never ending fight
- 2:02that we're still fighting. like,
- 2:03this is like, I, the moment you sent me just the picture of it,
- 2:07I was like, yeah, of course. Like this is,
- 2:09this is your stuff. So like, don't say like,
- 2:12you didn't know why we all know why.
- 2:13Emily knew why. Like
- 2:16We knew I.
- 2:17we knew why, but like that's not,
- 2:19there's nothing wrong with that.
- 2:20so that being said then Emily going into the production at the Fisher theater.
- 2:27You didn't have much knowledge other than what RJ shared with you,
- 2:30is that correct?
- 2:31Correct. I had listened to a lot of Act One,
- 2:36~ but I got ADHD, dog,
- 2:39and things happen. And so I hit a lot...
- 2:41You
- 2:45Yes, continue. Sorry.
- 2:47So I
- 2:47I hit a lot of the highlights,
- 2:49but songs like Great American Bitch,
- 2:51Let Mother Vote, like those, they stick with you.
- 2:55And I also love like those historical based musicals.
- 2:58So as soon as RJ said something,
- 3:00I was like, okay, I'm here. I love this.
- 3:03But not being able
- 3:07to see it really kind of blocks off a lot that is offered.
- 3:14And so when I was next to RJ and we were watching it,
- 3:17I was like, whoa, this changes everything.
- 3:21This changes how I was picturing it in my head.
- 3:23So it was lovely. I liked kind of ~ going in,
- 3:26not knowing much.
- 3:29I feel like RJ we had the very much the same kind of intro maybe even more
- 3:33so because we didn't even have act one to listen to we even have our ADHD there
- 3:37to kick in gear and tell us not to listen to
- 3:38Yeah.
- 3:39it we just went in with one song one song in a dream and This was
- 3:46one of the shows I'm trying to remember that trip.
- 3:47We've been on so many trips to New York forgive us for being you know
- 3:51Mmm.
- 3:53You know snobby New Yorkers now no,
- 3:55Mm-mm-mm.
- 3:55but
- 3:56~
- 3:56We, this was kind of the highlight of that trip.
- 3:59Like we saw a lot of shows. We saw 10 shows.
- 4:01I'm to remember what we saw. ~ But like this was a standout from the moment,
- 4:07like from the moment that the show starts to the end,
- 4:10you're on a historical roller coaster ~ that it really just,
- 4:16it was one of my highlights as well,
- 4:18which was surprising because I knew this was going to be your highlight,
- 4:20RJ. But even I walked away pretty stunned about the show.
- 4:23Yeah,
- 4:24I mean, again, because nothing because it was literally previews,
- 4:27which I'm not even sure we knew that it was previews till we got there
- 4:31and they were like, yeah, we open next week.
- 4:33there was no soundtrack.
- 4:37There was no, there was literally,
- 4:38might've literally just been a clip of great American Bitch I think that
- 4:44was the only, they had like one song out one kind of video to like promote.
- 4:50Right. And
- 4:52~ I recently found out that Great American Bitch was written
- 4:56for the Broadway production but was not in the off Broadway production,
- 5:00which this show took 10 years to get to Broadway.
- 5:03So
- 5:04Whoa.
- 5:05very interesting that that is the song that kind of like lifted it
- 5:09to like the Broadway space. anyway,
- 5:12yeah, having not known anything about it aside from a couple actor names.
- 5:17~
- 5:18Of course, like you just kind of get like knocked off your feet when you're like
- 5:22not expecting anything and then it ends up being powerful.
- 5:27And that knowledge from RJ Miller-Zelinko is brought to you by Suffs
- 5:31the Broadway scripts. No,
- 5:34I don't actually know if it's in there,
- 5:36but
- 5:36You
- 5:37I had this handy. you know, you always have this handy.
- 5:39Gotta show it off.
- 5:40feel like this is
- 5:40like a treasure, you know, you're both wearing your great American bitch hats.
- 5:43have my book, you know. ~ But truthfully,
- 5:49what I think is interesting and to kind of before we really dive into the story,
- 5:52I think what we have to kind of look at too is what's going on with Broadway right
- 5:56now.
- 5:57Or like, would say in like the modern genre.
- 6:00And there's a lot of history going on here.
- 6:03You know, we have Hamilton, which is a more of a.
- 6:07It's a it's a tale of what American history,
- 6:10you know, we have ~ Gutenberg,
- 6:13the musical, which is a part of history and
- 6:15Mm-hmm.
- 6:18fictionalized, you know I mean?
- 6:19But this one really is like a more like true to.
- 6:23like true to form, like true to earth story like that.
- 6:26Were you expecting something more like Hamilton when you were going into this
- 6:29or did you feel like you were like prepared for like a more traditional history
- 6:34lesson?
- 6:35I was certainly prepared for something more traditional.
- 6:38~ I won't lie, I felt a little guilty as a feminist learning a lot
- 6:44of these things for the first time.
- 6:46~ But you don't,
- 6:49they did such a great job of glazing that part of history over and they address
- 6:54it in the musical. ~ That it's like,
- 6:56yeah, no, it was tea parties. And like,
- 6:59eventually, the men just decided to be nice.
- 7:03And you think of the suffragettes in Mary Poppins.
- 7:07And that's all you think about.
- 7:08They wore big dresses and sashes,
- 7:10and that's what they did. They walked around and they said nice things.
- 7:14~ And it's really nice to know that that cognitive dissonance
- 7:21that you feel is real, because that existed,
- 7:25but that's not what happened. And so the shock value of that alone
- 7:30was
- 7:30so crazy and so emotionally like stunning to me.
- 7:34I'm openly weeping during intermission.
- 7:40It's like, okay, here we are.
- 7:42You know, I also, I was actually talking with one of the actresses from
- 7:46The production Abigail Aziz, and one of the things that she mentioned
- 7:49and that I also mentioned too is that you don't learn a lot about this
- 7:51in history class. I remember this almost being like a footnote to a chapter,
- 7:54you know? And when we saw it originally and I was writing my review and I had R.J.
- 8:01look it over just because I was,
- 8:03you know, I wanted to really do it this justice.
- 8:06And one of the things that he brought up was like,
- 8:07you know, the difference between suffragist and suffragette,
- 8:10you know? And like all of these different things,
- 8:11like they don't,
- 8:12Like, I don't remember learning half of this stuff in history class.
- 8:17And also that kind of tells you whoever wins tells the story,
- 8:20you know? And while women got the right to vote,
- 8:23did they actually win? That's a debate to have a different day.
- 8:26But truthfully, like, RJ, did you remember learning about this in school?
- 8:31Like, I don't remember having a huge section or knowledge about what
- 8:36was happening to get, you know,
- 8:38the right for women to vote.
- 8:40So I didn't remember specifically,
- 8:43because I think history class does kind of cover usually
- 8:48~ just a tad earlier than when this show is dated.
- 8:53So like they're talking about Susan B.
- 8:56Anthony, right? Which we
- 8:57Yes.
- 8:57know is Carrie ~ Katz ~ mentor.
- 9:03So we get like the history earlier,
- 9:06but then.
- 9:07this more radical quote unquote behavior,
- 9:10of course it makes sense to me that that gets swept under the rug.
- 9:15But I do remember again, like you mentioned earlier,
- 9:18me being like kind of liking the tragedies of history.
- 9:22I do remember there being conversations around the force feeding that
- 9:29happened and the fact that there was like kind of like
- 9:33a subgroup of
- 9:36suffragists versus kind of like the traditional ideology.
- 9:42~ Which I don't know if I saw,
- 9:45I don't know if I learned that in school or ~ actually if I remembered
- 9:50it from visiting a local museum that Henry Ford,
- 9:53who has an entire section based on suffragists,
- 10:00the suffragist movement, but also specifically Alice Paul and this group of radical
- 10:06suffragists. truly, I can't remember if I read it in a textbook or if I
- 10:10saw it in real life, but I had like an inkling,
- 10:13but not nearly the backstory for it all.
- 10:17You know, when we went to the Henry Ford for the first time,
- 10:20I had a tour guide named RJ Miller-Zelinko who walked me through the entire section,
- 10:25You
- 10:26giving me movies to watch and like things to look for and stuff.
- 10:30But truthfully, yeah, I think that was probably one of the first times that
- 10:33I really got in touch with it too.
- 10:35And I would argue that I don't remember that from when going to Henry Ford when
- 10:38I was a kid. All I remember is the Lincoln chair.
- 10:40So like that just tells you what I was really interested in.
- 10:43But there is like
- 10:45The Henry Ford does talk about a lot of the darker pieces of history,
- 10:49you know, and it doesn't shy away from that.
- 10:50And I do think that's what the Suffs does really well,
- 10:52you know, not the Suffs, Suffs,
- 10:54the musical does really well is that it doesn't shy away from lot of these things.
- 10:57It does talk about how there's two distinct approaches to getting the right
- 11:03to vote and how they differ so much,
- 11:05but also that that doesn't apply to everybody getting the right to vote.
- 11:08And I do think that's one of the beauties of the show is that there is a lot of ~
- 11:14I mean, they do, they show kind of the dark side of how this happened,
- 11:17including like you said, RJ, like the force feeding and stuff
- 11:20and the imprisonment because some of these women weren't being quote unquote,
- 11:25respectful or traditional to what the men wanted.
- 11:28And so that is truly one of the beautiful things about Suffs.
- 11:32what about maybe this story really,
- 11:35I guess, like this is so hard to say.
- 11:37What spoke to you, Emily? I'm,
- 11:39know, cause like this is
- 11:40yeah.
- 11:40a story that impacts your, who you are right now as a person as well,
- 11:43even though maybe it's not something that you're thinking about,
- 11:45but it's something that has led to you being able to be who you are.
- 11:51Like,
- 11:51What is
- 11:52yeah.
- 11:52the of the weight of that legacy as you're watching the story?
- 11:54~ I mean, so, so many things. I feel like I could talk about so many themes
- 11:59and so many moments. ~ But there is one that has like stuck with me
- 12:05the longest and hit me the hardest.
- 12:07And it's something that they sing often and two different characters during
- 12:13the show. And it's ~ the lyrics,
- 12:16why are you fighting me? I'm not the enemy.
- 12:19And I'm like, every time I hear it.
- 12:23in like ~ the multiple times it's kind of thrown into songs really quickly
- 12:27~ because it's something that once again with every historical musical
- 12:33it feels like we're talking about today and ~ how organization
- 12:38is so strong and how people can be fighting for the same thing in different ways
- 12:44and how, yeah, organizing just goes such a long way.
- 12:50And
- 12:51it's so hard because people are so stuck.
- 12:54And you always think that you are the one with the right idea and you
- 12:59are the one with the most effective way to do things.
- 13:02But what you don't get is the life experiences of ~ the older woman who's been doing
- 13:07this for a long time, the younger woman who's coming in with new ideas,
- 13:11the woman from a different race that has completely different life experiences from
- 13:15you. But you're all going towards the same goal.
- 13:18You're all marching towards the same goal.
- 13:21but you're still
- 13:21Callback.
- 13:22clashing along the way, but you're still walking the same direction.
- 13:26It's so, that's what's hit me the hardest.
- 13:30You know, I think when you talk about things like that,
- 13:32like kind of like how you're all headed towards the same goal,
- 13:34what I do love about the show is that I'm thinking of the part right
- 13:39at the beginning, basically, I mean,
- 13:41early on, but when they're, you know,
- 13:42they're getting their, their movement together to march on Washington
- 13:46and their approach is seen as almost crazy by the older women.
- 13:51Like you can't do this. Like you have
- 13:52Mm-hmm.
- 13:53to be quiet, but it also is the first time that it's really gotten attention.
- 13:56You know what I mean? And like,
- 13:58I love that there's this moment of realization
- 14:03for the older women who have been doing this for a while.
- 14:07Not that they approve of it, specifically Carrie Chapman Catt
- 14:13You see her realize of maybe it's OK to have a different approach to this,
- 14:20even though it's not the approach I want.
- 14:21know what I mean? And she still fights against it.
- 14:24Don't get me wrong.
- 14:25Mm-hmm.
- 14:26I do love that this moment of just being like that,
- 14:28can, fighting or like pushing forward looks different for everybody.
- 14:32Yes. Yep. So many different perspectives.
- 14:35I think.
- 14:37Yeah, the direct parallels,
- 14:40especially in today's time, like,
- 14:43I mean, just like open up like turn on the TV or open up Google
- 14:48and like lately the chatter about specifically not even rights,
- 14:55but just voting rights and gerrymandering and redistricting and all of these things.
- 15:02It's crazy to me that.
- 15:05were seemingly going backwards or ~ undoing things that we've already established.
- 15:11All the while,
- 15:15like looking at this, you know,
- 15:17historical movement and being like,
- 15:20it took so much work to build up and build off of these things.
- 15:26And yet in today's time, it seems so easy to just click the undo button.
- 15:33~ no matter what side of whatever you're on,
- 15:36like it's just, it took what? 60 years
- 15:42for like women, not in, I won't even say women,
- 15:45like specifically white women,
- 15:48~ to get the right to vote. like,
- 15:51right now we're undoing voting rights every month,
- 15:55it seems for somebody, ~ or making it more difficult to vote.
- 16:04and that's just crazy because that,
- 16:05mean, that took place over a hundred years ago.
- 16:07So.
- 16:09I always feel
- 16:09It's so close and yet so far.
- 16:12the line, every time I've seen this show,
- 16:14I always feel the line in my soul at the very end,
- 16:17~ which I forget who specifically says it,
- 16:20but she just goes, I'm tired. And she's reached the point where she's just
- 16:25so exhausted
- 16:25Mm.
- 16:25and they're like, yeah, you have to keep pushing on.
- 16:27Because I feel like as a gay man who just wants everybody in the
- 16:32~ LGBT population to be okay,
- 16:35it's exhausting.
- 16:37to keep, and like, you have to keep pushing.
- 16:39And like, if it's not this cause,
- 16:40it's another, cause we all push for equality for everybody.
- 16:43But it's like, you are exhausted.
- 16:46And like, to me, like, that's the part where I'm just like,
- 16:47that is the resignation. Like,
- 16:49as RJ loves to say, the call to action,
- 16:51know, being like, that you're exhausted,
- 16:53but you do have to keep pushing on because there's still a fight to be had.
- 16:56And that is a part of like building that.
- 16:59And so the parallels are just absolutely uncanny.
- 17:02And it also makes me really sad that the fact that like,
- 17:05We have a show kind of telling us like,
- 17:06this is what happened not that long ago.
- 17:08And A, first off, people weren't turning out the way I wanted them to.
- 17:12Like you should turn out and see the show.
- 17:13This is a show that everybody should see.
- 17:14But also like we are doomed to repeat history if we don't learn from it.
- 17:18And we're not learning from it clearly because here we are once again,
- 17:21just like we're not, we're not so far removed that this shouldn't have weight
- 17:25anymore.
- 17:26And I think, like RJ said, like this is a very dark piece of history,
- 17:31but I think the call to action at the end is very hopeful because yeah,
- 17:35even though we didn't learn about it at school,
- 17:36I'm learning about it right now and it's possible.
- 17:40It's hard and it took decades and a lot of committed people,
- 17:44but it's possible. There's a chance.
- 17:47And that kind of like settled my soul about everything that's
- 17:54happening. Like, yeah, okay.
- 17:55No, I'm not gonna give up. It's fine.
- 17:58I'm not going to prison. No one's arresting me.
- 18:01So maybe it's not as bad as I think.
- 18:05But also, on the flip side, I'm a white lady.
- 18:09So it's hard. Things aren't hard because I'm a white lady.
- 18:14It's hard to understand because I'm a white lady.
- 18:17~
- 18:20No, but you're right. And I think that it is something that,
- 18:23again,
- 18:24There is hope that this, to keep going on,
- 18:27obviously. I mean, I assume that's why RJ keeps going back for it,
- 18:31is because it's the hope that maybe things will get better.
- 18:35And it's a reminder, and within all the darkness,
- 18:37while progress still has to happen,
- 18:40progress has been made, we've come so far,
- 18:42and hopefully we won't go back.
- 18:44mean, RJ, I don't wanna speak for you,
- 18:46but I'm assuming that is one of the reasons why you keep getting drawn back
- 18:49to the story.
- 18:50Yeah,
- 18:50I mean, I think it's for two reasons.
- 18:54One of them, because like deep down in my soul somewhere I'm an educator,
- 18:58even though I didn't end there.
- 18:59and a masochist.
- 19:01And
- 19:01I think that this show is just such a well put together history lesson that
- 19:08is powerful because it does have that call to action at the end and it does have
- 19:13the hopefulness of tomorrow, right?
- 19:15And so I think if there's anything
- 19:18It's carrying that to the next generation and the next generation.
- 19:22mean, that's why one of, mean,
- 19:23obviously I love so much of the music in this,
- 19:25but specifically the March where they're kind of naming out each character saying
- 19:31who they're doing it for, right?
- 19:33I'm doing it for my mother, my sister,
- 19:35my student, my niece, whoever.
- 19:37~ And so I think that intrinsically that's why I go.
- 19:43And that's why I've taken different people every single time that I go.
- 19:48Because that is, I think, my way of being like,
- 19:51I want the people around me to know about this thing,
- 19:56right? Because we might not know it or might not have learned it previously.
- 20:02So this is the opportunity to do that.
- 20:05Part of the brilliance I think of this show too is that and again,
- 20:08I'm not trying to use Hamilton as comparison,
- 20:10but here we go ~ Someone I recently talked to you mentioned about
- 20:14how Hamilton while it has his name on it It's not actually about like
- 20:18the American Revolution or about Hamilton himself,
- 20:20but about everybody else that it's in his life ~ Which is
- 20:24an interesting take Because I don't think that it goes nearly as deep as
- 20:28it as you get also in this story with the people So while this is
- 20:32a story about getting the right to vote,
- 20:33I think that what?
- 20:34I love about it is the moments of actually getting to understand the real women that
- 20:41it's based on. Like, just to be like,
- 20:43these aren't just people that you read about in history books.
- 20:44These are people who want families or don't want families.
- 20:48You know, these are people who,
- 20:49you know, get upset and,
- 20:53you know, and have emotions. And,
- 20:55you know, I think that this is one of the reasons why I love Inez so much
- 21:01is that because
- 21:03She's somebody who is just like a vibrant person in real life,
- 21:07but also somebody who was larger than life also in history,
- 21:11but also somebody who, when she dies,
- 21:13you feel like you've like, you've earned it.
- 21:15Like sometimes I think with Hamilton,
- 21:17like when Hamilton dies, I don't cry because I feel like sometimes like he hasn't,
- 21:21like, I haven't spent enough time learning who Hamilton is other than just like
- 21:24a philanderer. ~ but like there's something about these characters that
- 21:31that are so real and soft because you're spending time with them both
- 21:35on like a grand scale and like a microcosm scale.
- 21:38You know what I mean?
- 21:39Yeah, I think because of Hamilton's massive ensemble that then again,
- 21:45a lot of them double up in Act Two,
- 21:48it just feels like an overload.
- 21:50And in Suffs you're like, all right,
- 21:52here are the core five girls we're rooting for.
- 21:57Here are some other people that show up a lot.
- 22:00And then you get to know them the entire show.
- 22:04And because it doesn't do the like Hamilton Act Two flip,
- 22:09You also, after Inez's death, get to see the cascading effects of what that's doing
- 22:15to their group when one of them is gone now.
- 22:18~ It is certainly not brushed aside and moved past.
- 22:22And because you've gotten to know that core group,
- 22:26you're seeing how they're dealing with it differently too,
- 22:29especially when they're in prison,
- 22:30when Alice Paul is talking about like,
- 22:32we're doing it for Inez. And the other girls are like,
- 22:35get her name out of your mouth.
- 22:38I'm doing this for me, I'm doing this for everyone else.
- 22:41It's like, whoa, okay, this is a very real fight that these girls are having,
- 22:47these women are having. And I understand both sides of it because it's so raw,
- 22:53because it's so real, because they're yelling at each other,
- 22:55because their emotions are heightened,
- 22:57because they're in the middle of this hunger strike.
- 23:00I can see myself having that fight.
- 23:05And I think we all have that, well,
- 23:07maybe that's a grand generalization,
- 23:09but we generally have a group of friends that we're close with,
- 23:13right? Like everyone kind of has their people and I think the relationships that
- 23:19we see built ~ on such a intense scale,
- 23:23like obviously it's kind of, you know,
- 23:26packed into this very short amount of time,
- 23:28but you can just tell obviously based on the years that they spend together and.
- 23:33~
- 23:34all of the things that they go through.
- 23:37It's just like, you know the pain of losing someone that is close
- 23:42to you and or someone who represents a movement,
- 23:47right? Which, you know, we get the iconic photo,
- 23:51which again, like what an awesome callback to reality.
- 23:57I think that's, there's a difference and that's the difference too between when
- 24:01we talk about comparing historical
- 24:03documents and musicals, Hamilton versus Suffs.
- 24:06Yes, Hamilton has all of like the cool choreography and like the,
- 24:11you know, hip hop and making it super modern.
- 24:14But Suffs just has the like, they're just like,
- 24:17let me just drop this photo in front of you because this was a real human being that
- 24:21died at a very young age doing what she believed in.
- 24:26Even though she knew that she was terminally ill,
- 24:28she kept going. She gave up her,
- 24:32you know, basically her entire life or adult life.
- 24:36for
- 24:38women's rights, really. ~ And so I think,
- 24:41yeah, we don't feel that, I mean,
- 24:45we just saw Hamilton, right? And I was like,
- 24:47there was no point in this where I was like,
- 24:49wow, he like really did this thing for the people.
- 24:52It kind of all feels a lot like he did this for himself,
- 24:56right? Which we know, because legacy is a big theme in that show.
- 25:00But ~ yeah, two very different,
- 25:04but.
- 25:06The Broadway-esque of it all, like Hamilton sells out for three weeks.
- 25:10Suffs struggles to sell out,
- 25:15or to sell, I shouldn't say even sell out,
- 25:18~ for two weeks. ~ But also the nature of politics.
- 25:25You know, I do have to just say as well as you were talking about the show,
- 25:30RJ, it crossed my mind that this reminds me kind of not in with story context,
- 25:36the way it's presented of Parade,
- 25:38which is interesting because I really loved that show too.
- 25:41But like they actually use the real photos of people.
- 25:43They used real experiences. It's more historically accurate and it's more
- 25:49of like that gritty story. So it's interesting that
- 25:53Like, just in my head, was like,
- 25:54~ there are other shows kind of like this in this capacity that
- 26:00are just equally as brilliant as Suffs.
- 26:02And I just, you know, I had to share that,
- 26:04Well, actually, one of my favorite shows that I believe has been lost
- 26:11in the pandemic, but Hello Girls,
- 26:13and it talks about, you know, I was going to bring this up.
- 26:17It talks about the women that went overseas during World War I
- 26:22to help connect phone calls because the women knew how to do it and
- 26:26the men couldn't do it fast enough.
- 26:28And so they sent the women over and they were like,
- 26:31ready to be on the front lines and then they found out what they were doing
- 26:34was training men to be on the front lines.
- 26:37And a big part of the end of the show is we have to get to the front lines because
- 26:42if we're not there, they're going to say we weren't there at all.
- 26:45And the point is I'm willing to put my life on the line for this country because
- 26:51I want to vote. The big argument they're making is that men are willing
- 26:54to die for the country, men get to vote.
- 26:56I'm willing to die for my country so I can vote.
- 26:59And I just, think the connection is so fantastic.
- 27:02I think I called Suffs a pretty healthy mix between Hello Girls and Hamilton,
- 27:08because Suffs has that more modern,
- 27:10like rhythmic kind of ~ speech,
- 27:15lines in the middle of ~ songs.
- 27:19And Hello Girls feels like a very classic,
- 27:23more classic version of the music,
- 27:24but Hello Girls is fantastic. If you like Suffs.
- 27:28please check out Hello Girls.
- 27:30And hello girls, please do a tour.
- 27:33Hello girls,
- 27:33please, please go anywhere. I will buy anything.
- 27:37I will travel anywhere. Bring it back.
- 27:40I mean, seeing that it did just have a stage production last night as
- 27:43a one night only kind of performance.
- 27:45Well, for you guys, it won't be last night.
- 27:48May 8th, they had a performance.
- 27:49But it seems that there seems to be something warming up for that,
- 27:53I would say. But ~ before we run out of time,
- 27:57I do just want to say, and I always want to give you guys a shout out as well.
- 28:00Besides Inez, which RJ knows I've always loved Inez,
- 28:02I do have to say for this production,
- 28:04I was flabbergasted by how exceptional.
- 28:09Lucy was comparatively and I know RJ you have such a sweet spot
- 28:13for your your Broadway gales and that's fine You can love them all you want
- 28:17and I'm not saying anything against them and she was still fantastic
- 28:19but Gwen Wood do it us for some reason was Just took it to a whole new level
- 28:24and I don't know if it was because she reminded me of the girl from Bridgerton
- 28:28who was a great actress, know,
- 28:29or if it was It
- 28:30It's so true.
- 28:32was like it was almost spot-on and just how like the mannerisms and everything
- 28:37So I do have to a shout out to Gwen Woods that just is like,
- 28:40this was such a fantastic role for me.
- 28:43RJ, we'll let Emily close this one out.
- 28:46I'm let you go ahead and say, was there a standout performance from this production
- 28:49~ boy,
- 28:50for
- 28:50you?
- 28:51that's so, this cast works so well together.
- 28:56It was so believable to think that they had all been friends for decades
- 29:01and they were willing to die next to each other.
- 29:02~ I truly loved Great American Bitch because,
- 29:08I mean, the recording is fantastic,
- 29:10but when you see it on stage, it feels like girlhood.
- 29:14Like, yes, of course you are.
- 29:18And I also thought the Lucy stood out because she looks just like cute as a button.
- 29:23And then she's like, I pushed this card into a ditch,
- 29:26I don't know. And I'm like, okay,
- 29:28yeah
- 29:29Ha
- 29:29girl, yeah you did. ~ And so that was ~ absolutely fantastic for me.
- 29:35~ There's lots of bright spots,
- 29:37but I feel like that was the brightest spot,
- 29:41the happiest, the peak of happy for the show.
- 29:44For
- 29:44sure. And RJ, was there a standout performance for you?
- 29:47Was there a person that just took the cake for you?
- 29:50Ugh, that's so hard. Yeah.
- 29:53Pick your favorite child quick.
- 29:55Yeah
- 29:56I mean, honestly, I'll just say this.
- 29:59Because I'd seen it multiple times on Broadway,
- 30:02I was afraid of what the cast would be like comparatively,
- 30:08but I was pleasantly surprised by pretty much everyone because
- 30:13it felt fresh, it felt unique.
- 30:17to them as humans, but it was still exactly what I was expecting to see.
- 30:23Like they still felt authentic.
- 30:26I don't know, just generally, obviously a great job in casting
- 30:31the show and just an incredible high level of talent as well vocally.
- 30:38And with that concludes episode one of our Suffs Podcast,
- 30:40but stay tuned for part two coming soon.
- 30:42Before we go, let us know what you thought of the story of Suffs,
- 30:45and also if you're a great American bitch in the comments.
- 30:47Thanks again for joining us here in our box seats.
- 30:49Until next curtain call.