♪ > > This week on the Wheelhouse.

♪ ♪ > > A fight for the 19th.

A woman's right to vote.

And Connecticut's part in this story.

> > 11 > > just hold your Siri > > Maybe carries right.

> > That's the only way we win.

It sounds just like my father, Italy's Alice, have some sense.

> > Don't you know, and no one > > Close to an intense.

It lives.

all gets to dispense it.

> > So West settle down due to excess and the iPhone and many times > > I don't want to you.

> > Anima > > Working at a good Frankie Graziano.

This is the Wheelhouse.

The show that connects politics, the people we got your weekly dose of politics in Connecticut be on right here.

Maybe a little theater as well.

Socks, the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical about powerful women has come to Hartford theater goers at the Bushnell will see history through the eyes of women won the fight for the right to vote this hour.

We'll go back in time to see how Connecticut people fared during this time during the suffragist movement and learn about another place in the state where you can go to understand the history of women's suffrage.

And before we get into SOPS, we're start right there with a little bit of the history aspect.

Joining me now, the public programs coordinator we're director at the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History.

Natalie Blanchard.

Natalie, thank you so much for coming in here this morning.

Thanks for having me.

So great to talk to you.

I want to.

Talk about a little bit of history here in Connecticut.

Beat some of the people and places we need to know regarding the suffragist movement.

> > I just want to talk about what we would see if we went to go see Sops, we'd see the organization of the 1913, women's suffrage for session in the play.

We see Ida B Wells and Alice Paul argue over where well should March chance of rolling with her state, Illinois.

Kinetic it.

I was actually at the march in 1913, in Washington, D.C., to add that right now.

Yes, you do.

And we had our own march the following year.

> > And then.

> > At the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History.

I understand it.

There's a relic from this march.

Yeah, it's really cool documents.

So we have a program from that day.

So many pages.

> > It's got really cool information about that particular day.

So the march was put on it was sponsored by the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association, which is like the Connecticut branch of the National Organization.

And it was this parade with many different floats and contingencies that marched and what's kind of interesting is that they're organized by profession.

So you start off with one that is a group of women marching as professionals, doctors, lawyers.

I want to say librarians rate teachers.

You have other segments segments of the parade where women are marching as artists and journalists.

There's another one, which is really interesting that is women marching as working class women.

So there are women who are representing corset factory workers and and hat factory workers and textile factory workers and even domestic workers.

So like mate, House House maids, which is a really interesting sign of the way that by that time, the suffrage movement, was really making inroads in getting working class women on board because in its earlier phases, it was much more like a middle class, a movement.

> > Natalie's a pro herself because she's done the hard work are ready of talking about something that's going to be a specter in what we do the rest of the show and really the history of women's suffrage in America classes a dynamic what names are featured in this program.

I know you talk about groups in something like that.

Is there anybody that we may know throughout history or somebody?

We should know that's in this program.

> > So there is a name that's probably familiar to a lot of people, but it's not the person that most people might think it is.

So the leader of the Connecticut, when the suffrage association at the time was Katharine Hepburn.

You're like a Katharine Hepburn like the actors.

This was her mom.

And so Katherine Hepburn here, this is a family they live right here in Hartford Katharine Houghton have burned the mom.

had I think 3 kids at this point, maybe she was on her 4th kid and she was married to a neurologist at Hartford Hospital and she got into the suffrage movement when a British suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst came to speak at Hartford around 9 to 10.

I'm not exactly sure the date but Penn, Chris was one of the militants suffragists in England.

She was one of the women she gone to jail sheet on hunger striking and heparin was fired up by this.

And so she rose to become the leader.

The cake.

When the suffrage association when she took that organization over it had about 500 members when she was done with it.

8 years later, it had over 30,000.

So she was like one heck of an organizer.

> > Katharine Houghton Hepburn, her husband.

You mentioned your ALA just.

Does his profession or or or lease any of their interest have anything to what to do with their motivations as something that they might be pushing at the time and at least as one of their causes that they care about.

> > Yeah, so they're both really interesting happens.

We're very eccentric people.

Doctor Hepburn had interest an aerial to cease.

So, you know, people, you know, it's okay to talk about a day when it's OK St Eyes, as we say today.

So people, you know, would say, like you'd go to dinner with the Hepburn's and Missus, Hepburn would be going on about, you know, suffrage and her other pet cause was birth control, which was, of course, illegal at the time.

Right?

So they beat up talk now that and Dr Hepburn would be talking about Lake how high rates of syphilis were in Hartford and it was they were just a really interesting eccentric, unusual couple.

And Katharine Hepburn after women got the vote 1920, she actually spent the rest of her life devoted to the cause of birth control.

So she worked with Margaret Sanger, who she had known for a while and they founded the American Birth Control League, which is the forerunner of Planned Parenthood.

Very important time in America.

Of course, we're going to World War soon after.

> > The World War starts in 1914, around the time we have this Connecticut women's March here and then the war we get into it 2 years later.

But I just want to ask you at this point, what are attitudes towards women and gender?

You talked about birth control.

That's a huge issue.

But I would imagine a lot of men don't have time for that at that point.

And even women as well.

> > Yeah, it's an interesting time, really.

I mean.

People have written entire books about this.

Women are making even before women got the vote nationally.

Cause you say in 1910, right, women could vote in some states.

They could vote some Western states here in Connecticut.

They could vote for school boards as a like 18.

93, you could vote in school board elections.

If you're a woman, women are making inroads in the professions.

Women are graduating from high school in equal or maybe even larger numbers than than girls and boys and they're educated and they This is the progressive era.

So there's all this reform going on in the early 19, 100's you know, people are working to clean up the food supply end child labor is a huge one minimum wage laws.

Lots of people working for prohibition of alcohol and the backbone of many of those movements.

Israeli women.

And so women are very organized.

And it's a really interesting thing to see.

I think a lot of people like assume you know, at the time before women had the vote, all women wanted the vote and all men didn't want women to vote.

And that is like absolutely not true.

So lots of men supported women, suffrage and lots of women were opposed to it, but not always for the reasons you might think.

So.

Lake.

And people I think today might think women who didn't think women should vote believed in this very oppressive gender ideal where women should stay at home and never speak up.

And, you know, beast, you know, be seen and not heard, maybe not even seen.

But the truth is a lot of the women who are opposed to suffrage were quite accomplished women.

Some of them were reformers activists.

All of them were active in their communities Connecticut had an official organization opposed to women's suffrage, run by women who were really skilled at lobbying and they did all the stuff the safai did right.

So they did pamphlets and I don't know they that they didn't really do rallies, but they were very politically astute and we have some of their papers at the museum to.

It's really interesting to see how you know, they could list every representative in the General Assembly from every town in like what their position on suffrage was.

So they're quite skilled political operatives, but they're working against women getting the vote, Connecticut.

It's sort of beneath them at that point.

I think for some up for some of them, they really truly a lot of them really, truly believe in.

This was sort of things like I said the time right?

So this separate spheres, women are very good at doing the things are good at doing.

Okay.

The home children, things like nursing, right?

So it makes sense to people it.

Women are becoming nurses and teachers that make sense.

It's care work.

men are good at the other stuff like politics and a lot of people believed that women.

It was a waste of their talents to try to do the things men did.

And a lot of others believe that politics was kind of inherently dirty.

And why would women stoop to that?

Women have the moral high ground.

Women are more pure.

Why would you get involved in discussing politics when you could rise above it and like lobby your legislators to passing minimum wage law or something like that.

You mentioned progress earlier.

Is there progress in Connecticut in terms of inclusivity in the Connecticut women's suffrage movement or > > not?

Yeah.

So I said earlier, I kind of heat some praise on them for making that for working this middle-class organization, working with working class women.

But there is a there's a glaring omission here.

So if we go back to that pamphlet, we have for that 1914 parade.

I can't find anywhere in it.

There's no it doesn't appear to be any group of women of color marching as women of color.

It's possible that they some of some women of color marched with their professions.

But we don't know or at least I don't know.

And this is Connecticut.

When suffrage association did not admit black women.

So African-American women, there were plenty of them who worked for suffrage in Connecticut, but they had their own organizations and very often they're suffrage.

Work was it was so mixed up with other that they're doing so one of the best known ones here in Hartford as Mary Townsend, Seymour, who was a founder of the Greater Hartford NAACP and she came about just around the same time that just at the last couple years of the suffrage vote.

She also worked to unionize women, especially tobacco workers, African American tobacco workers and in the towns in the Hartford area.

And she's a person who is working on multiple causes at once, including suffrage.

And she wrote letters to the national NAACP about the Connecticut situation and in which she was quite critical of Katharine Hepburn floor.

You know, she kind said she's not really an ally.

You that there's primary documentation to say that as well.

Yeah.

> > When terms of primary documentation, oh, you got the my journalist spine-tingling here.

You talked about some pamphlets.

You talked about the program in totality.

What do you have at the museum regarding women's suffrage and where can we find you all?

> > the Connecticut Museum on Elizabeth Street in the west end of Hartford.

Come visit us can accuse him of cultural histories are full name.

We have some documentation.

We have files, a letters of the Connecticut association opposed to woman suffered.

So we have the the antis we have lot of documentation related to them.

We have some suffrage materials related to the pwsa.

I will say.

Nobody really has Katharine Hepburn's papers, at least not many of them because her husband had most of destroyed after she passed away.

Which is unfortunate.

Of course, the Connecticut State Library also has quite a associated with that Connecticut and suffer dissociation you can find incredible photographs of suffrage activities on their website.

Also, the lab Congress has a lot.

So there's a lot of information out there.

If people are interested.

> > Any time we do something like this, we get inspired by subcommittee, the Bushnell or something like that.

You want to talk about Connecticut's roll him in this story.

And Natalie, you did it all for us.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate your work.

Natalie Blanchard public programs manager for the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History.

Thank you for coming on the show.

Thanks for having me.

After this.

We're going to talk to actor in Safai and we're also going to talk to the creative producer of stops.

> > More Wheelhouse is coming up right after this.

Connecticut Public.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ This is awesome Frankie Graziano SOPs coming to the Bushnell in Connecticut.

We are excited to have some members of the show on our show 8, 8, 8, 7, to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, the number to call.

If you're interested in the Wheelhouse, you can also find us on social media.

Very exciting here to hear from people associated with stops the musical that inspired today show about women's suffrage.

Danielle Fulton portrays IDA B Wells.

The journalists.

Daniel, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having so great to have you here.

I'm excited.

I'm excited to be Rachel Sussman as well.

Very instrumental in this.

Obviously, Janet job as the writer, but you've worked very closely with You are the creative producer.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Frankly, Tony Award-winning Rachel Sussman, as I understand it, that is fantastic.

If Daniel doesn't have a Tony sooner, doesn't already have one, then move.

All right.

Good company.

Let that's right.

Let me concentrate here.

Let me focus up here and ask you first question, Daniel, I view your performance as IDA B Wells and in the movement as a linchpin for this musical.

Alice Paul played by Connecticut's Maya calendar.

Actually, she's from Colombia.

Is the radical of the day that is running the effort we see in sobs your they're constantly reminding her reminding another powerful black woman, Mary Church Terrell too.

About the lack of inclusivity in the national women's suffrage movement.

I imagine it's one thing to be powerful and then have to convey that to a big audience.

> > yeah.

And you do every day.

But, you know, I just I I consider this a big responsibility and honor to be able to introduce Ida B wells to so many people because so many so many people don't know her name.

And if they do know her name, they don't know what she was about.

I was one of those people who didn't know and her name and she wrote some things but had no idea she was an intent, lynching crusaders.

She wasn't our first one of our first investigative journalists.

So > > powerful as she was a powerful, powerful woman.

> > And actually one of how many years and she's must eyesight.

How many lunches must eyesight?

You know?

And and and and a little bit, too, am happy about 2026 either.

But, you to to to introduce her is the power, you know, to keep her to keep running going at that time.

She was one of the most famous women.

You know, they poems written about her and you know, so much literature.

People would just just loved her so much.

And then her name Jus didn't continue.

safai just does just does his touch on.

I'm just so grateful to be able to do so as well.

> > When I saw subs in Providence, you received several standing ovations for your seen stealing singing.

I will say.

> > Now, what is that any sort?

And get get?

You can see a thing.

Yeah, you are a lot and I was looking at you as the issue noticing is our gets pretty that is that any sort of validation?

> > I mean, of course, I mean, the you know, > > you want to be careful about live allegation you're you're taking in and not, you know, because it it ebbs and flows that, you know, as we both know this business can't, you know, can can can soon if you if you let it.

But it validation that people are hearing and listening to what she's saying.

You know, people get fired up.

They they ready likely said.

We said earlier when I did steps out, she's the black face first by face on stage like we're on stage at the beginning.

But in some ways they can see us.

So she's the first introduction of okay.

We're going a little deeper.

We have we have.

We have to address this.

So people are excited.

You know, to start the conversation and fired up already.

So by the time the song finishes, they're like, yes, thank you for saying that.

And it's a testament to Shane is beautiful, writing to.

> > A lot of action in the crowd as we're watching this.

Let's hear a clip from the show will get an idea of the fire that that Daniel is talking about.

This is on the march.

We demand equality performed by the ensemble cast.

Let's hear it.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm watching Daniel Watch the promotional video.

you see that steely gaze.

You have all your singing.

Of course, you can tell that we're standing up because if you're in it, let's send it back to the lyrics.

We demand to be heard.

We demand to be known.

We demand a voice.

We demand to be heard.

We demand to be seen.

> > Equality now listening back to those lyrics, would you tell me what that song is?

You?

> > Yeah, but we're not asking.

We demand It's just it's just a war cry.

Really.

only go through so many.

The abs inflows again of, you know, galvanizing indicted, either refuses to to be second.

She refuses to be in the back and you see her make this triumphant mood, which was, of course, historical.

But the way the station was so beautiful, she come straight down right to the front.

And by that time now she's leading the pack and then, you know, they're attacked and then they galvanize again.

You know, it's it's it's a really, really beautiful scene, which I imagine just is a morsel of what actually happened.

You know, the violence that they that they encountered.

So yeah, we day Baden ask they demanded Eve even in the face honestly evil.

You know, he just had no idea any of this happen until doing the show in doing that.

March is just invigorating every day.

It's powerful > > and it helps you understand a piece of that history.

And so in terms of the production, Rachel and trying to put that together, what does it mean for the production, especially that first?

That's really a an anchor in the first act.

I know there's a lot more to come after that song in the first act.

But it really is sort of an anchor at that > > Absolutely.

It's the first point.

big ensemble number where you get to see everyone performing together and I feel like it's all leading up to the march from the beginning of the show.

And IDA comes in and disrupts the action that Alice and her crew are are working on and then we get to see the march and we see the way in which the black women are integrated and or disrupting that demonstration.

Love that term disrupter.

President Woodrow Wilson isn't Sops a big supporter of his at the time is Dudley Field.

Milan also in the play.

They're not played by men.

In fact, the whole cast identifies either not binary or female.

> > What do you believe that cast as the musical and the intention behind doing that.

> > So this casting philosophy was really built by our director, Alice, over Men, Tony Award nominee and Shana myself or my producing partner, Jill, for men and we wanted the women of today and non-binary folks Non and to be able to reclaim and tell the story.

And and so while we have women and non-binary folks playing these characters, they are also opportunities for us to see the way in which men participated in this movements on one end of the spectrum, you have someone like President Wilson and on the other end of the spectrum, you have Dudley Field Malone who ends up.

Leaving Wilson's administration in support of suffrage.

And so it's important that we also see that this movement was not just and can never just be when an it actually takes everyone.

And so that is part of why Dudley Field Malone is a so heavily featured in our show.

> > What's unique about SOPs or even deliberately nique in your presentation that can help audiences.

Understand what American women have gone through or go through.

Now.

Yeah.

> > O a I think that.

Safai ultimately is story about the hard one ongoing fight for not just specifically the vote, but our show does cover the vote.

For equality and how this is a cyclical fight.

This idea that every generation helps to move the needle a little further.

So that the next generation can pick up the mantle and continue that fight.

And and souths really is an intergenerational story.

On one end, you have this.

This older guard led by Carrie Chapman Catt and then you have on the other end, the the young radicals led by Alice Paul.

And it is actually that tension, which we see neared over and over again in our nation's history.

That.

That we bring to life and that should be.

In our view.

And in the show's view.

Cause for hope.

not for despair that the this is an ongoing fight.

There will always be more work to do.

And there will always be that next generation to help see it through.

> > It's beautiful when you think about it.

And the way at I've been trying to promote the show for a couple of weeks in the way that I'm writing in and things like that.

I never thought about it in this regard were saying race class, but as simple as simple as young and old, rich and poor, black and white.

This is kind of what we're seeing.

This ongoing tension is ongoing fight.

Wait my turn.

It's your powerful act.

One solo people can YouTube as well.

That's what they're gonna want to do after this year.

You do your magic here.

> > Are you someone in your personal life, Tanya, going to wait their turn.

> > know.

I mean, if it's appropriate time, absolutely.

> > But I mean, in the case of inequality and no and I in in in in the places where I'm not that way, it is actually develop developing me to do so.

I always talk about when I read a passage in her autobiography about the time she was at the Fellowship, me and they were some gentleman outside that were little causing some some havoc.

And she said when its security guys, can you go and handle it?

He cape came back and said, oh, they're just too much and she goes out, do it.

If you parked outside and had a conversation with them and did it out of love and said you can come inside but you can't do this out here and he said, no, we can be respect you too much.

And after reading that, I said, oh, it you're going to go onto me and you because she just had the gumption and the strength in the in the the resolution to say, I know that I can handle this because I'm coming with an open heart to invite and also to correct.

And she was that way throughout her life.

So she did.

I mean, she never waited her turn.

And I just I just hope to take that example far beyond safai cushions, just shining example of truth and honesty and courage.

It's wonderful to notice and see that personal development and see kind of.

> > Ida come alive within you when performing wait, my turn, what lyrics of that song do you identify with most?

Is there anything like you want to nail for the audience in particular?

> > whole thing bay, as well as we're speaking.

One thing just popped up in my head.

so sick of rhetoric with no action to back And this you know, There's so many things we talk about a lot of liberal people.

You know, there's a notion that I value these things.

But in that put into action when when a lot of people are actually challenged in real time, they can't handle it.

And I just I just hope and pray challenge that when you are, you know, route or you feel uncomfortable to work through it because if there is any time we need to be a weave, we such a time as this.

It's been a time is this for a very, very, very long time for a lot of people for the entire nation.

But I think we waking up in a different way if we need you, we need you now.

So if you are, you know, moved to, you know, to feel anything, please put it into to action.

Please put boots on the ground in whatever way you can.

> > Rachel, in addition to race and gender, there's class dynamics within the movement.

Earlier we talked to Natalie Bellinger from the the Connecticut Museum of Culture and history who said Suffragists had multiple issues that they were trying to bring to the fore.

Really.

And we see this throughout the play in addition to the right to vote obviously, is that part of the subject subtext for the play to tell me about class and socks.

> > Oh, absolutely.

We have Rouge event.

Klaus got one of our SOPs who is a Polish immigrant factory worker.

Who really comes in to the group of radicals and is there 2 se?

I'm not here to like throw a Tea Party with all of you.

You south's of of a higher class than I am.

I'm here, you know, to to make action and do something about it.

And she has these moments throughout the show where she is able to.

Touch on the fact that if it was an immigrant woman, if it was someone of a lower born class, would they be treated the same as some of these?

Higher class white women who were able to?

Do this.

This is something we don't actually cover so much in the show.

But these women did this as their their livelihood and not all women had that privilege to be able to just fight for suffrage in and be an activist.

They had to earn a living for their family.

And so Rusia really is representative of that.

I think it's also really important to buy Daniela saying suffrage and Alice, Paul's perspective is this is a single issue fight for the vote.

Yes, many other with him of of class race in particular, black women had other fights that they were fighting at the same time.

Not just for the right to vote because they were women and so we really try and bring that tension into the conversation.

We also have a character Alva Belmont who is real historical figure as well representing philanthropy and this higher class lot of cash, lot of gas and he's able to, you know, become the patron of the National Woman's Party and we see the way that Sheehan Rusia interact together.

And so I think it's a really interesting point that you bring up because it is not just story about gender.

It is a story about race.

It is a story about class and while they didn't have the language at that time.

What we today can see is this is an intersectional fight and that is how we need to approach it in Twenty-twenty 6 and beyond.

It's just kind I'm reminded what you said about rhetoric earlier.

> > This is the probably the most powerful thing about Sops is.

While there are going to be forces like Alice, Paul, who want this to be single issue.

You don't know how long single issue sort of causes can really permeate or make a difference.

And we're seeing that in America now with a lot of people that one change.

If you want you may be by a party that says that no, we should just focus on this one thing or whatever.

And maybe some of the progress that we've made in recent years is something they're going to turn away from to change the country.

So it's fascinating.

What happens when you sort of focus on one issue and as Alice Paul does in the show, she is constantly sort of whacked in the face of their bye.

Daniel were rouge, as you said, or even at the Well, let's not spoil it.

But nonetheless, there's constant reminders there, Dallas balls that there are more than the issue of just women's suffrage at play or lease standing it up there.

We have more coming after the break.

We are not going to let you guys go yet.

We have one more segment listening to Daniel Fulton and Rachel Sussman, powerful forces.

> > Behind Subsys play at the Bush do.

They are going anywhere after the break.

When examined some of the words lyrics and important imagery displayed in the musical, give us a call.

8, 8, 7, to 0.

If you'd like to talk about to date.

> > 7 to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, You listen to the Wheelhouse and Connecticut Public.

> > That's not all I'm much with my own state > > I don't mind, you know.

> > And that's none of ♪ > > wait one for my ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ > > This is the Wheelhouse from Connecticut Public rate on Frankie Graziano, the fight for the 19th Amendment comes alive and stops the Tony Award-winning musical from Broadway.

That's also made its way in Hartford.

This hour, we're talking to a cast member and a person from the show's creative staff about Janet Hobbs musical featuring some of America's most powerful women.

Speaking of bringing people life, Daniel Fulton brings Ida B wells to life and stops.

Thank you for sticking with us here.

Rachel Sussman is such a creative director.

Thank you so much for giving us a peek into the show as well.

We hope you'll join conversation today about Sops and the fight for women's rights.

Give us a call or hit us up on our YouTube stream.

It's 7 to 0, 9, 6, 7, 7, The number to call you said you really weren't initiated to Ida B Guess when you're younger.

But now that you've gotten to know quite a bit, you sort of may be taking over.

Do you feel like she's back with us here?

> > many, many different ways.

You can get spiritual fou fou, but definitely whatever you want.

I mean, and I definitely definitely believe that she's still permeating.

And I see here examples and many people I bring someone like Tamika Mallory with until freedom someone who is who is not afraid to speak up.

Amanda Seales, I see her her or likeness in a lot younger black black women.

And and I pray to be my own version as well.

She's definitely What did you have to do to become?

I use that you write an autobiography without what?

What kind of things you do to get all method on us.

And then the?

> > Well exist.

That's what have to be to make that about.

it's like being strong and having to do all that.

It's one thing to say that these women are powerful, but you kind of the united to come alive a little bit because it's a lot to ask you to go out there and do this in 2026, but it's a worthy responsibility, you know, and you know, the women and non-binary people leaves are on stage that we leave the stage that way.

> > And as the black women like myself, Mary Church Terrell play by attrition.

Jeffrey, the Tory, a pickle who plays Phyllis and another one.

We're not going to say who surprise for later we leave the stage as who we So as we go around every day, lives were still black women that have to experience what what that means every day.

I you know, that's just, you know, existing in that way in understanding that experience but reading it was a different experience for her.

You in 1800, you know, I read her autobiography Hussein's for Justices.

We were just talking about a great granddaughter.

We showed Esther who wrote it be the Queen.

And just researching her life.

And I like to hear what if I'm playing historical character.

She's about the 3rd one I played.

I like to hear what they say about themselves and then also here with their family says says about them as well.

Please go and where first.

And what ever you know is is in the show.

That's not necessarily written out in history.

You know, you make educated guesses on what they would do.

It's important to me to show her humanity.

Lot of times activists get demonized.

You know, they become this one thing for unfortunately are seen as aggressive or, you know, a trope of themselves.

But I wanted to make sure that people in any way I can that she was a spiritual dimension.

That Bible study, you know, she prayed a lot.

She was a mother of of, you know, for children.

And, you know, she was a family woman, you know, I'd try to find spaces anywhere I can to show all of those callers who she was.

> > Digging deeper into the songs and Ida B Wells recollections in the song.

How many more lynchings?

Most eyesight?

I said that earlier.

You want to put my sex before my race.

How important is it for audiences to view racial inequality throughout his eyes?

In Twenty-twenty 6 against its?

> > What's what's one dramatically for important?

It's essential essential.

It's imperative and it's everything.

It's everything.

unfortunately, the conversation has been.

> > It is not only us, you know, we talk about a 1, 1, situation.

One issue conversation, you know, black people, people of color and or privileged people.

Women have been saying if they come for us, they will come for everyone an extremely unfortunately we're seeing that.

So it's it's imperative.

It's 4 for, you know, if I want to bring some people into the world is imperative for The state of the world, you know, we've been leaders for a very, very long time.

And I don't think that we are.

I know we aren't holding their end of the bargain.

So in this small ways we can do active work inside of a musical.

If we can see, you know, galvanized some people are just just get them inspired it.

Hopefully we can, you know, inspire the next generation to right.

The wrongs that we're doing right now.

But it's extremely, extremely important.

> > Love the way they put that if they come for us, they can come for everyone.

Where were you during the play's, Rachel?

I understand you're in Hartford for this one.

So we we get to have you back here.

What you're what's your involvement in the play's nowadays?

It's a great question.

So you know, this musical, which I like to call my my first baby because I I had a son.

in the midst of its premiere on Broadway.

> > was it was a 10 year journey to create this piece began in 2014 and I shared.

This book jailed for freedom by Doris Stevens, one of our other characters in the musical was Shaina Taub and I said this is something that has been percolating in me.

I really feel like this story should be told and Shana as so many have experienced know Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B, Anthony and maybe you've heard the name Ida B Wells.

But otherwise, most of these women have been lost to history and we were both so.

Excited and honored to bring them to life of the national imagination.

And Shana, along with our director B and my producing partner, Jill, a music supervisor.

Andrea, are crafted from it.

Natalia, the team primarily made up of women in the creative leadership as well.

We work to bring the show over that decade of time through development be permitted at the public theater in New York and then.

Went to Broadway.

Where see mentioned we want a few Tony Awards.

> > and my my job as a producer, which is such nebulous word for folks is really I'm.

> > behind the scenes, you know, running running the strategy positioning show as we prepare to hit all of these various markets I do as I was saying to Daniel Love to to see how different audiences react to and it's been very affirming to see in this moment.

And in 2026, how audiences are feeling galvanized around the show and leaving with with this sort of call to action of our finale, which is keep marching.

So I I do check out the show on the road from time to time and get to come out.

The Hartford Welcome.

Thank you.

But I I primarily and based in New York and I have play that's running on Broadway right now.

> > I was gonna say, oh, so you're going to be somebody.

We're going to want to come back on the show off and because there's a theme, we're at least there's there's there's some political ties to your work.

This is not the first such as in the first sort of a political angle that you followed.

And I know people don't want to tie politics to women's suffrage.

And that's a big reason why women state out some women state out of a the fight for the vote because it was sort of beneath some of the women to kind of get sullied up in politics.

But politics, it's something you care about.

How much can you talk about that work that you're doing and why is politics something that you're trying to bring to the stage?

> > So I feel very moved to tell socially conscious stories that are going to resonate with.

Audience is in in this current moment.

And so I do have a play on Broadway that's running through Sunday liberation by best while direct is I would be white, which of of all things I have spoken to both Shana and Bass and it feels like a companion piece to safai.

It takes place in the 70's and I won't spoil stops.

But there are some tight ends to this.

The second wave of the feminist movement.

And I'm I'm particularly interested.

And by that time now is Paul's old pad essentially at > > Yeah is we're kind of getting the old you are or again.

It's that plea and, you know, I they want be able to B, I call it like a creative doula to help you work.

Shepard work and offer a platform for these stories that.

Possibly messy and are asking hard questions and forcing the audience too lane then and challenging them to think about.

Their lives and their place in the world in a different way.

and I I do that in all sorts of ways.

But South's was really the the my center of gravity for such a long time.

And I feel really honored that now I can develop other things based off of my experience here, I value and appreciate your work and the way that you talk about it because the creativity aspect is something that people don't think about producers a lot because.

> > Nowadays, every every Hollywood stars, a producer now and basically a lot of times people think of producers as connections and making just talent connections.

But the work that you're doing and bringing this to the people in a creative aspect is like it's not just like who should we have played this, but how should people play this?

So there's there's a little bit of direction in there, too.

So I really value that digging back into safai.

Hear some more imagery I caught on to during the show.

There's the sacred sphere of nurturing Rachel theirs.

The silent course of centuries let mother voters.

That's all you could hear as sort of a gentle plea to a man for his support for a cause.

And then there's the youngster at the end of the play that meets an older Alice Paul.

We talked about that evoke memories within hours of her relationship with Carrie Chapman Catt.

You also hear about Ida B Wells relationship with Carrie Chapman Catt.

Yeah.

and her having to have that conversation.

What do we make of these pointed to his either ways women are perceived by others or even what they have to endure that to have rights existence.

You said earlier.

Absolutely.

I mean, the show opens on let mother vote and you see.

> > The National American Woman Suffrage Association which carry Ron's story dove very politely.

Asking men to let mother voting.

She's working sort of on the state-by-state level trying to Gainey's allies with mail politicians and Alice Paul comes in and says this is going to take forever.

We were even doing this for 60 years.

Let's fight for a Federal Amendment by would be do this in this way.

And so you see you see these 2 different strategies actually fighting for the same thing, which is ultimately getting women.

The vote.

But in 2 completely different ways and the ways in which they rub up against each other and also the ways in which they ultimately need each other.

And and that is shown you see that sort of tension bubble up and build between Allison carry throughout the show.

But yeah, there were 2 different approaches.

This sort of Federal Amendment now we're going take action.

Ver says we are going to take a much more conciliatory approach and and build these relationships and ally ships.

Action is a good word.

> > Because there's messaging within finished the fight and we demand equality and keep marching.

These are cause actions should audiences heed these calls by might they need to?

Is this something that as you all are writing this and putting this together, you're like, yeah, we kind of want them to act and do And are you trying to really galvanize folks?

I guess think that that is very much shame is in tension, especially by the time you go on this journey and you emotionally connect with Allison Eid and Kerry.

> > I think one of the brilliant things Shana has done is while.

Kerry is an antagonist.

2.

Alice Paul, as the protagonist.

She is not a villain in any way.

And I think it's really important to recognize that these were complex humans and Alice, Paul also makes politically justified decisions in her view over.

Racial justice ones and asking Ida and other black women to march in the back of of their 1913, March.

So it is a really interesting thing and finished the fight is I think an ongoing called to folks I can speak to you all day.

We got to wind down here.

Unfortunately, those last question.

> > I'm speaking to you before the show, Daniel and Hartford before its perform in front of live audiences at the Bushnell in Hartford.

What do you want local audiences to take away from the show when they see you?

> > I was listening to issue a thing of overall message in a few lake, one line and it is wait.

My turn is you do have a choice is always a choice between William make and if we do anything on top of galvanize and inspire, I want people to be aware of the choices that every day there is one.

to to know that they exist.

And in that.

They affect people.

> > One on one like, you know.

> > The choices that many leaders make, you know in for my everyday, you know, as a black person in America.

So I want I want people to open their eyes to of course, I want them to know about.

I don't want them to to get inspired and go on some things, go dot com and see the timeline and all the literature that they can read to get more information about them.

I want them to be inspired and and to learn > > When you see this play, if more.

you see it in Hartford, you see it wherever.

I think it's going to Cleveland at some point there's national tour.

It's a big national tour.

You will not be able to mistake.

Daniel Fulton, just a fantastic performance.

Thank you for coming on the you can thank you for bringing it back to to us here in American Nikki James as well.

thank you so much, Rachel.

Soft thank Rachel Sussman.

> > Now Mister Causey suspended panel.

Do that.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

You're not the first.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for your work in putting this out to the audience is.

Thank you so much for having us.

This is the Wheelhouse.

Thank you so much for listening today.

Today shows produced by tally Ricketson edited by Patrick's Our technical reducir argier technical director is still in race.

That's it for this week's show.

Tune in next week.

This is the Wheelhouse.

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