“That is thrilling,” Hillary Clinton, the previous secretary of state, mentioned on a cold Thursday night time exterior the Music Field Theater on forty fifth Avenue, as girls in strapless robes walked a purple carpet.
Ms. Clinton, a famous Broadway superfan, was making her Broadway producing debut with “Suffs,” a brand new musical about girls’s suffrage that traces the marketing campaign for the suitable to vote from 1913 by way of the ratification of the nineteenth Modification in 1920, which was celebrating its opening night time.
The present not solely arrives in a presidential election 12 months, as states try and tighten voting legal guidelines, but in addition as Broadway is bringing extra female-centric tales to the stage. Viewers curiosity in such tales has additionally been robust — within the earlier week, “Suffs” ranked within the prime 10 of the 36 exhibits on Broadway within the share of its seats crammed.
“I’m so excited that audiences are embracing this story,” Ms. Clinton mentioned. “It’s historic and related, and it’s emotional, and it exhibits the relationships amongst these girls who fought so arduous to get us the suitable to vote.”
“And,” she added, “I actually hum the songs on a regular basis.”
“Suffs” additionally boasts primarily girls behind the scenes. Its core producing staff, which is all feminine, consists of Malala Yousafzai, the 26-year-old Pakistani activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who, like Ms. Clinton, is making her producing debut.
“This present reminds us that ladies fought arduous for his or her proper to vote, and it’s not one thing that we must always take as a right,” mentioned Ms. Yousafzai, who attended Thursday night time’s efficiency together with her husband, Asser Malik, and wore a purple pin with a hand and a black coronary heart — used to suggest assist for a cease-fire in Gaza — and a purple hijab.
Ms. Yousafzai mentioned it was the musical “Matilda” that helped her modify to life in the UK after she moved there after the Taliban shot her in Pakistan in 2012 due to her assist of academic rights for ladies.
“I may see one other woman from one other place, and I may relate to her,” Ms. Yousafzai mentioned. “And I’ve been watching musicals ever since.”
When she noticed “Suffs” on the Public Theater in 2022, and “instantly fell in love with it,” she knew, she mentioned, that she needed to be concerned with bringing it to the Broadway stage.
“This was a narrative that everyone must see and everyone wants to listen to,” Ms. Yousafzai mentioned.
Shaina Taub, a singer-songwriter who wrote the e book, music and lyrics, started engaged on the mission 10 years in the past, and performs Alice Paul, one of many leaders of the motion, within the present. It went by way of a number of years of improvement earlier than premiering Off Broadway on the Public Theater in 2022, then nonetheless extra rewrites, together with a brand new opening quantity, earlier than starting performances on Broadway in March.
“I’m simply excited for us to lastly get to construct up neighborhood across the present,” Ms. Taub mentioned.
(The group on opening night time included the filmmaker Ken Burns; the editor Anna Wintour; the influencer Dylan Mulvaney; and the performers Sara Bareilles, Ben Platt, Laura Benanti and Lin-Manuel Miranda.)
For 2 and a half hours, they listened to a solid that included the Tony Award nominees Jenn Colella and Emily Skinner race by way of a lineup of rousing feminist songs as Ms. Taub’s character, Alice, enlists her fellow suffragists. (In his evaluation, The New York Instances’s chief theater critic Jesse Inexperienced described the manufacturing as “good and noble and a bit like a rally.”)
On the curtain name, Ms. Clinton, who was seated on the entrance proper facet of the middle orchestra part, was one of many first to face and applaud. Because the solid and artistic staff have been offered with white roses, Ms. Taub spoke from heart stage.
“In the event you’re impressed by this story, if you happen to do one factor, be sure to’re registered to vote,” she mentioned, to raucous applause.
Because the present set free, members of the solid, artistic staff and viewers headed to Pier Sixty, an occasion venue on the Hudson River in Chelsea with floor-to-ceiling home windows and a glass-enclosed terrace with a twinkling view of Decrease Manhattan.
Ms. Clinton was one of many first partygoers to reach. She relaxed and sipped from a glass of white wine till the solid walked in. She hugged Ms. Taub and congratulated her, whereas Ms. Yousafzai and her husband posed for photographs in entrance of a purple “Suffs” backdrop.
The performers Ben Platt, Darren Criss and Rachel Brosnahan chatted round buffet tables stacked with an assortment of small bites, together with barbecue glazed quick ribs, miniature citrus crab muffins, raspberry cream tarts, tiramisù, lemon coconut macarons and carrot coconut bundt. Bartenders poured glasses of glowing wine and Previous Fashioneds.
Visitors, who got gentle blue sweatshirts that learn “Ambition” as they departed, appeared to soak up the message of the night time.
Because the occasion was selecting up, a younger lady in a gold-sequined gown posed close to one of many massive purple “Suffs” photograph backdrops. Then she turned to a pal and mentioned, “I’m going to vote!”
