'Suffs' Creator Shaina Taub Wins Two Tony Awards

Shaina Taub as Alice Paul in ‘Suffs’ Credit: Courtesy of Joan Marcus

Waitsfield native Shaina Taub has won the 2024 Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score Written for the Theatre for Suffs, her musical about the women’s suffrage movement.

The 77th annual Tony Awards were presented in the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday night.

“I grew up in Vermont watching the Tonys every year with my mom on TV and dreaming of being a part of this magical community,” Taub said as she accepted the award for Best Book, Playbill reported. “Thank you for letting me be part of it.”

Suffs marks Taub’s Broadway debut — a quadruple debut as she wrote the book, music and lyrics for the show in which she also stars. Taub plays Alice Paul, cofounder of the National Woman’s Party, which pushed for a Constitutional amendment as opposed to winning suffrage state by state. The party injected marches and demonstrations into the movement.

Dressed in a purple satin jumpsuit with gold buttons, two of the National Woman’s Party’s signature colors, Taub appeared nearly overcome — breathless and with a shaking hand — as she accepted the award for Best Score. Speaking lightning fast — “My mentor, Elizabeth Swados, used to say I could run auctions because I talk so fast,” Taub said — she thanked Swados, the late composer, writer and director who was one of her college teachers, and composer Jeanine Tesori, another mentor.

“And to all of the theater kids out there watching, especially the loud little girls: Go for it,” Taub said. “You can do it! You are powerful. You are valuable. You are strong. If you doubt yourself, it’s OK. I doubt myself all the time, but you can do it. I am rooting for you.”

Suffs was nominated for four other awards, including Best Musical, which went to The Outsiders, a show based on S.E. Hinton’s young adult novel.

Suffs‘ other nominations went to Nikki M. James for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical, Leigh Silverman for Best Direction of a Musical and Paul Tazewell for Best Costume Design of a Musical.

Hannah Cruz as Inez Milholland (center) and the Suffs company Credit: Courtesy of Joan Marcus

Coproducer Hillary Clinton introduced the Suffs company, who performed the show’s finale, “Keep Marching,” during the awards ceremony. “I have stood on a lot of stages, but this is very special,” Clinton said. “And I know a little bit about how hard it is to make change, so I’m extremely proud of this original American musical by Shaina Taub, now two-time Tony winner.”

With a cast of women and nonbinary actors, Suffs stages a musical history lesson that is stirring, sobering and empowering while also funny and entertaining. The show opened on April 18 at Music Box Theatre. Rachel Sussman and Jill Furman are lead producers.

Taub, a 2005 graduate of Harwood Union High School, enrolled at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts when she was 16. As a rising star at New York’s Public Theater, she turned two Shakespeare plays into 90-minute musicals for Public Works, the Public Theater summer program that puts professional actors onstage with 200 community members at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater.

Suffs started at the Public in 2022 and sold out its off-Broadway run there before it opened.