By Kristen Nevarez Schweizer
October 3, 2025
National theatrical tours are a bit of a magic trick. They promise a Broadway experience without the pilgrimage to Manhattan’s theatre district. But, like enjoying sleight of hand, one must admit reality to respect the craft. The show in San Diego, Miami, or Omaha will not be the same as the one in New York. And that tension is evident in SUFFS: The Musical, the current tour in Broadway San Diego’s 48th Season.
SUFFS chronicles the American suffrage movement with a Golden Age musical theatre formula: ensemble banter, belted solos, and pretty harmonies from a large ensemble. It received critical acclaim and multiple Tony nominations—ultimately winning for Best Book and Best Score. Written, composed, and originally starring Shaina Taub, much of the original show’s electricity came from Taub playing Alice Paul. Additionally, in the spring of 2024, there was a belief—however fleeting—that Kamala Harris might be on her way to the Oval Office. That hope, in a blue-leaning city, energized the show with triumph: a torch passed from these first American suffragists to a fifth-wave of feminism.
When a show leans heavily on its creator’s energy or current events, their absence can expose the scaffolding. Broadway tours often reveal the distinction between event and text; between cities, scales, and expectations.
I attended SUFFS in San Diego on October 1, 2025, the first day of the latest federal government shutdown, feeling wary as to whether this script and score could glow in the cavernous recesses of our city’s largest, theatrical performance space. Context matters. SUFFS premiered off-Broadway at the Public Theater’s Newman stage (299 seats) in 2022, then moved to Broadway in The Music Box Theatre (seating 1,025) in 2024. San Diego’s Civic Theatre seats nearly 3,000 people. Nuanced looks that feel electric in an intimate, jewel-box setting can evaporate in the (newly remodeled) Civic’s vastness.
I feared my own cynicism when the first act bordered on a civics textbook set to (great!) music, almost hearing the expository footnotes. A great work must also deliver a catharsis that makes one feel human. But SUFFS reached this heat in the messier second act—thanks to a focus on generational rivalries, leaders pushed to burnout, and the admission of white women abandoning women of color to pass the 19th Amendment faster.
When the show became about the humanity present within movements: the nuanced infighting, morally grey decisions, and bending to Presidentially-sanctioned physical torture of American citizens. Whispers that snapped like flint in New York’s Music Box Theatre were swallowed in the expanse, but the second act of SUFFS doesn’t whisper—it rallies. In this larger chamber, Young Are At the Gates became a tent revival. What this show lost in Taub’s absence, it gained in the roar of three thousand encouraged souls.
The borderline-Brechtian closing number—Keep Marching, opening with “I won’t live to see the future that you fight for”—didn’t feel like a period at the end of a sentence, but a reminder that great sentences contain semi-colons; democracy doesn’t advance in a straight line, and setbacks don’t nullify the struggle toward progress.
See for yourself, as SUFFS: The Musical runs in San Diego from Sep 30 – Oct 5, 2025. If you miss this tour, I predict this show will become a popular choice for college and high school productions.
Pick up your tickets at Broadway San Diego’s website and check out the rest of their 48th Season, including:
- & Juliet (Oct 14–19, 2025)
- The Notebook (Apr 14–19, 2026)
- The Sound of Music (May 26–31, 2026)
- Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (Jul 7–12, 2026)
- Hell’s Kitchen (Aug 11–16, 2026)
- Water for Elephants (Aug 18–23, 2026)
The blend of pop musicals, reimagined classics, and literary adaptations showcases the breadth of Broadway’s current moment.
