A Tony Award-winning musical will make its Texas debut at Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth as the 2026 Broadway at the Bass season comes to an end. Suffs tells the story of brilliant, passionate, and funny American women who fought tirelessly for the right to vote.

Local Connection

The musical focuses on the years leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 and follows historical figures like activist Alice Paul and journalist Ida B. Wells. Performances from August 4-9 will be the final stop on the show’s first national tour.

Actress Trisha Jeffrey, who portrays Memphis native Mary Church Terrell, said, ‘Suffs is a wonderful musical about women fighting for the right to vote after Susan B. Anthony, women finding their voices who really wanted to be heard and seen, women who were just tired of waiting for their voices to be counted.’

Historical Significance

The National Women’s History Museum says Terrell was a well-known African American activist who championed racial equality and women’s suffrage in the late 19th and early 20th century. Terrell was born in 1863, the daughter of former slaves. Her father was a successful businessman who became one of the South’s first African American millionaires.

Jeffrey says the company travels with a Suffs library on the road to continue to research and learn about the women who shaped American history, but whose stories may not be well known. She describes them as women who wanted the same things, who loved each other, who fought hard and sacrificed.

Original reporting: Dallas TX News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.