Suffs Lyrics – All Songs from the Musical

"Suffs" – The Musical Guide & Song Meanings

Review: what the lyrics are trying to pull off

“Suffs” wants to be two things at once. A propulsive civics lesson, and an argument about what gets erased inside a victory. Shaina Taub’s lyrics are blunt on purpose. They play like speeches you can sing, with hooks designed for a crowd that has places to be. That directness is the show’s strength and its risk. When you are this clear, you cannot hide behind mood.

Taub’s smartest lyrical move is that the antagonists are not only outside the room. The songs keep returning to strategy, compromise, and who gets asked to wait. Even the most rousing refrains have a wary undertone: unity is necessary, and still not free. The show’s internal rhyme is pressure. Pressure from presidents. Pressure from newspapers. Pressure from your so-called allies. By Act II, pressure turns physical. The language tightens. The jokes thin out. The score starts behaving like a march that does not end when the lights go down.

Musically, Taub writes in a contemporary Broadway idiom, with flashes of earlier American styles when the story leans into period pageantry. The big theme is not nostalgia. It is momentum. The best numbers build like organizing. First a few voices. Then a stack. Then a room that cannot ignore you.

How it was made

“Suffs” is author-driven in the old-school sense: one writer shaping book, music, and lyrics, then revising like it is an athletic event. Taub has described writing and rewriting dozens of songs, and she has named a grab-bag of influences for specific numbers, from Broadway touchstones to unexpected pop-culture references. That matters because the score is engineered, not merely inspired. Each song has a job, and if it cannot do the job, it gets replaced.

The Broadway transfer also came with practical changes: a larger theatre vocabulary, new design scale, and a cast album rollout that hit early in the run. The show’s central collaboration is Taub with director Leigh Silverman, and the end result feels like a piece built to travel. Not just geographically. Emotionally. The lyrics are written to land even if you do not already know the history, which is also why they can sound a little like a stump speech. That’s the point. “Suffs” is trying to recruit you, not serenade you.

Key tracks & scenes

"Let Mother Vote" (Carrie Chapman Catt and Company)

The Scene:

A polished meeting room. Sashes, decorum, the comforting glow of “respectability.” Carrie frames the fight like an institution with rules. The lighting tends to feel warm and official, which is its own kind of trap.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric sells legitimacy. It also exposes the show’s main tension: access versus disruption. Carrie’s language is strategic, controlled, and already bargaining with the future.

"Finish the Fight" (Alice Paul)

The Scene:

Alice steps forward as if she has been waiting backstage for history to call her name. The staging often isolates her in a harder spotlight, less salon, more street.

Lyrical Meaning:

This is the show’s engine: impatience with incrementalism. The lyric is a vow and a warning, because it implies the fight will cost her everything she might have wanted besides the fight.

"Wait My Turn" (Ida B. Wells)

The Scene:

The 1913 march, with public celebration on the surface and segregation negotiations underneath. Ida is asked to cooperate with racism for the sake of optics. The air onstage goes colder.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric rejects “later” as a moral plan. It is one of the score’s sharpest arguments about who gets told to be patient, and who benefits from that patience.

"Great American Bitch" (Ruza, Alice, Lucy, Doris, Inez, Company)

The Scene:

A burst of release after public heckling. The staging leans into swagger, with a brighter palette and a sense of women taking up more physical space than they are permitted.

Lyrical Meaning:

The song flips a slur into fuel. The lyric is funny, but it is also tactical: it teaches the group how to metabolize contempt without turning inward.

"Worth It" (Alice and Company)

The Scene:

Late night. A lonely desk. The movement has a cost, and the cost has a face. Lighting becomes intimate, less rally, more confession.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric is the show’s clearest portrait of sacrifice, without romanticizing it. It asks the question organizers often avoid saying out loud: what if the work consumes your life and the world still shrugs?

"The Young Are at the Gates" (Doris and Company)

The Scene:

The Silent Sentinels at the White House gates. Banners. Stillness. Then arrests. The lighting reads like daylight that suddenly turns punitive.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric weaponizes presence. It is about public witness, and the price of refusing to move. On album, it plays like the moment the show stops asking permission.

"Fire & Tea" (Mrs. Herndon, Alice, Carrie, Company)

The Scene:

Occoquan Workhouse. A prison matron with complicated ethics. Hunger strikes and forced-feeding looming in the room. The sound gets harsher. The stage feels narrower.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric lives in moral gray. Duty versus cruelty. Sympathy versus complicity. It is one of the score’s best examples of Taub writing an “opponent” as a person, not a cartoon.

"Keep Marching" (Alice and Company)

The Scene:

A finale that refuses to behave like an ending. The company gathers with the brightness of triumph and the unease of unfinished work. The last image is usually forward-facing, aimed directly at the audience.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric is a handoff. It treats history as an inheritance with conditions. It also doubles as the cast album’s closer, designed to keep echoing after the last track.

Live updates (2025/2026)

Information current as of February 2026. “Suffs” opened on Broadway April 18, 2024 at the Music Box Theatre and played its final Broadway performance January 5, 2025. The production was captured on film in December 2024 for PBS’ “Great Performances,” with a broadcast date still to be announced in the public reporting available at this time.

The title is very much alive on the road. The North American tour launched in September 2025, and the official tour schedule lists 2026 stops including Cleveland (Feb 3 to 22), Boston (Mar 17 to 29), Chicago (Jul 7 to 19), and Fort Worth (Aug 4 to 9), among others.

Licensing is also moving: Music Theatre International acquired licensing rights, a tell that “Suffs” is being positioned for regional theatres and schools once availability windows open. If you are building an evergreen “where to see it” section, the safest sources are the tour’s official schedule and the Broadway League touring listing, because everything else tends to lag.

Ticket behavior varies by city and week. Aggregators sometimes show low-to-mid two-digit starting prices in certain markets, but treat that as weather, not climate. For planning, trust venue onsales and the tour website first.

Notes & trivia

• The Broadway cast album dropped early: it released digitally June 6, 2024 via Atlantic Records, with physical editions following later.
• The cast recording contains 36 tracks, which makes it feel less like a highlights reel and more like a document of the show’s full argument.
• MTI acquired licensing rights in early 2025, a significant step for a new musical’s long-term life beyond commercial runs.
• The Broadway production was filmed December 20 to 22, 2024 for PBS’ “Great Performances.”
• The show’s Broadway run ended January 5, 2025, and the tour launched in fall 2025.
• Critical response often singles out the show’s focus on internal movement conflict, not only the external opposition.
• For an “album-first” listen, start with “Let Mother Vote,” jump to “Wait My Turn,” then “The Young Are at the Gates,” and only then circle back to the Act I build. The narrative lands cleaner that way if you are new to the plot.

Reception

Reviews tend to agree on one big thing: Taub has written a clear, urgent piece of musical storytelling, and it is not shy about its message. Where critics split is on texture. Some love the directness. Others want more surprise, more shading, more air between thesis and chorus. That push-pull is baked into the material. The show is about coalition, and coalition is rarely elegant.

“Suffs is a full-throated musical call to action… It wants to light a fire under you.”

“Suffs… does just that with a singular vision.”

“A spirited musical about suffragists is not a triumph, but much improved.”

Quick facts

• Title: Suffs
• Year: 2024 (Broadway)
• Type: Historical musical
• Book, music, lyrics: Shaina Taub
• Broadway venue: Music Box Theatre (opened April 18, 2024; closed January 5, 2025)
• Original cast recording: “Suffs (Original Broadway Cast Recording)”
• Label / distribution: Atlantic Records (digital release June 6, 2024)
• Selected notable placements inside the story: 1913 Women’s March; White House gates (Silent Sentinels); Occoquan Workhouse; Tennessee ratification
• Tour status: North American tour launched September 2025; official schedule continues through at least August 2026
• Captured performance: Filmed December 2024 for PBS “Great Performances” (premiere date TBA in available reporting)

Frequently asked questions

Who wrote the lyrics?

Shaina Taub wrote the book, music, and lyrics.

Is the cast recording close to the whole show?

Yes. The album runs long and includes a large chunk of the narrative, which makes it unusually useful if you are learning the plot through audio.

Did “Suffs” close on Broadway?

Yes. The Broadway run ended January 5, 2025.

Is “Suffs” touring in 2026?

Yes. The official tour schedule lists multiple 2026 engagements across the U.S., with dates currently posted through August 2026.

Will there be a filmed version?

The Broadway production was filmed in December 2024 for PBS’ “Great Performances.” Public reporting has not yet listed an air date.

Where should I start if I only want three songs?

Try “Wait My Turn,” “The Young Are at the Gates,” and “Keep Marching.” You will get the show’s moral conflict, its physical stakes, and its final provocation.

Key contributors

Sources: Suffs official site, Playbill, Variety, Time Out New York, The Washington Post, IBDB, Atlantic Records press site, New York Theatre Guide, Broadway News, Broadway.com, Broadway League tours.