What the Hit Broadway Musical SUFFS can Teach Us About the Fight for Abortion Rights

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Shaina: [00:00:00] There’s a lot of freedoms being rolled back in this country, but our freedom to express ourselves on stage, and to tell these stories of our past, and to reckon with them, and to hold up a mirror of what this country has been, and to show what we can maybe be in the future.

Jenna: The Statue of Liberty was designed so that she is moving forward. The movement of the statue looks like she is moving forward, and it was because the artist wanted to make sure that it was never forgotten, that you always have to move forward for progress.

Simon: Welcome to Rights This Way, a podcast from the New York Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of New York State. I’m Simon McCormick, senior staff writer at the NYCLU, and your host for this podcast, which is focused on the civil rights and liberties issues that impact New Yorkers most.

Simon: Before we get started, just a quick note that outside guests on this show do not represent the NYCLU and their views are their own. Suffs is a [00:01:00] Tony Award winning Broadway musical set in the early 1900s that chronicles the suffragists fight to secure women’s right to vote. More than a century later, the production’s Broadway run is happening at a moment when abortion rights, and women’s rights more broadly, are under attack across the country.

On this episode, we sit down with Suffs writer and star, Shaina Taub, and ensemble cast member, Jenna Bainbridge, to talk about creating politically engaged art. We also discuss what lessons we can take from the suffragist experience that will help us in our current moment. Finally, we talk about the connection between Suffs and the campaign here in New York to safeguard the right to abortion by voting for Prop 1 in November. We’ll get to all of this in a moment, but first I’d like to ask you to please download, rate, review, and subscribe to Rights This Way. It will help more people find this podcast.

And now I’m joined by two guests. Shaina Taub wrote the music, lyrics, and dialogue, or book, in [00:02:00] Broadway parlance, for Suffs. She also plays the lead role of Alice Paul in the production. Shaina made history at the Tony Awards this year as the first woman to win both Best Book and Best Score on her own in the same year. She’s also only the second woman in Broadway history to write the book, music, lyrics, and star in her own musical.

I’m also joined by Jenna Bainbridge. Jenna is a Suffs Ensemble cast member. She’s also only the second wheelchair user to appear in a Broadway musical, and the first wheelchair user to originate a role in a Broadway musical. Shaina and Jenna are also both NYCLU Artist Ambassadors, and Shaina helped found our Artist Ambassadors program.

Shaina, Jenna, welcome to Rights This Way.

Jenna: Thanks for having us. Thank you, this is such an honor.

Simon: I’ll just start with you actually, Jenna. Can you just tell us what Suffs is about?

Jenna: Yeah, so Suffs is a musical all about [00:03:00] how a group of women fought for the 19th amendment, which granted women the right to vote in the United States.

And it focuses on some of the power struggles within the movement, as well as some of the generational conversations of how we are always fighting to improve on, you know, our current lives and how the past and the present may come to a head, but, uh, how we’re always working for that forward progress

Shaina: So well said Jenna.

I mean, yeah, it the suffrage movement spanned 72 years by some calculations. I mean, you know it the fight for female enfranchisement is is generations and centuries old But you know from the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention all the way through the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 and this show focuses specifically on the seven years leading up to the passage of the 19th amendment when sort of a young more radical faction of the movement came along to pioneer non violent direct action and civil disobedience and you know a lot of more confrontational protest tactics and injected those [00:04:00] into the movement. So we sort of followed the clash between as jenna said yeah that younger group and the older more moderate wing of the movement.

Jenna: And we see a lot of tactics in Suffs that it’s the first time this tactic is ever being used.

And now we think of them as so, you know, commonplace, like they did a march on Washington. They marched down the street, a group of women of 200, 000 people attended this march. And now we think of that as just, you know, yeah, that’s one of your protest tactics, as you might take to the streets and march. And these women were the first ones, they pioneered this.

Um, and so it’s really interesting to see how this movement has really been informing our lives to this very day.

Simon: Shaina, what made you want to write this, uh, musical and, and what makes it different from anything that you’ve, you’ve done before?

Shaina: I wanted to write this when the idea was brought to me, actually, by one of our producers. Uh, Rachel Sussman

gave me a book written by the suffragist Doris Stevens, who is one of the characters in our show, who Jenna plays on some night she’s playing tonight, [00:05:00] actually. Um, and Doris had written sort of a memoir that I think reads like a thriller about the silent Sentinel protests. As Jenna was saying, one of the tactics that American suffragists pioneered was picketing in front of the white house.

So anyway, this book kind of tells the story of that. And she gave it to me. And I stayed up all night reading it and I just kind of couldn’t And I couldn’t believe I hadn’t learned it in school, so I was sort of, I was so many feelings at once. I was inspired by it, I was exhilarated by it, and I was inspired dramatically too, it’s such a juicy, dramatic story. The stakes could not be higher, and then I also just felt alarmed and kind of angry that I had never heard this story before, and that I was in a place Uh, where I was searching for something to write about, and I was, I was in the middle of trying to take the Robin Hood myth and gender flip it for women.

Cause I was looking for a story about like a group of girls taking on a system together. And I think a big revelation was like, Oh, I don’t need to adapt like a, uh, English myth, like [00:06:00] I, this story is right in my own American backyard, so ripe for dramatization and sort of shocked that there’s, you know, there’s a few things here and there, but there’s not, we have not been, the suffragists are not in our national imagination, we have not been asked to imagine them as flesh and blood people. We think of them as dusty figures, frumpy figures in one page of a textbook on American history. When in reality, these were flesh and blood young women, women of all ages, but just like Jenna, just like me, just like so many of the girls and women that I know.

And so I thought, ooh, maybe theater might be actually the best way to tell this story, because what theater can do is a couple things. It can humanize historical characters. It can invent, emotionalize for them in a way that a history book can, or also, like, you know, a statue of a suffragist sort of has to be inherently celebratory.

Whereas, while I do want to celebrate these women in the show, I also want to dramatize them. In all of their flaws and all of [00:07:00] their you know that the good bad and the ugly. So it just it as you can probably tell it just like fired on all cylinders, and I felt like how could I write anything else? But it was different than anything I’d done before to your question of I had just finished doing two Shakespeare adaptations. So I had adapted Shakespeare.

I had done some adapting of myth, but this was my first historical adaptation. This was the first time I was really like diving into research in such a serious way.

Simon: Yeah. And it’s an, it’s an amazing story. I saw, I saw the, um, the production last week, so I, I can, I can personally attest. Yeah. And Jenna, what made you want to, want to be a part of SUFFS?

Jenna: Oh, so many things. Um, so I first learned about SUFFS when, Uh, there was an audition posting for one of the workshops, and at the time I was living in Oregon, I had been working at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival when the pandemic began, and was sitting in quarantine, and honestly was auditioning for every [00:08:00] pipe dream job that I could find, and the public had always been one of those places that was really interested in working.

So, you know, I was, I saw this audition announcement come up and I was like, Oh, the public, that sounds, that sounds great. I’ll audition for that. But then I was sent the script. And I remember like sitting in my parents house and like just inhaling the script. And they had sent like a few audio files with it.

And I remember just getting so excited that the music was like nothing I’d heard before on Broadway. And it’s so interesting. And it’s so entirely unique. It’s Shaina’s voice, but, and, and Shaina doesn’t sound like any other, any other composers on Broadway. So I was very excited about that. And I was excited by an entirely female team and the entire cast was going to be comprised of female and non binary performers.

And that really [00:09:00] excited me, to tell a story about women, by women, was revolutionary. And, um, I had been lucky enough while working at Oregon Shakes to do a few productions like that, and I found that work so invigorating. So, it just felt like this perfect project, and it also felt like such a pipe dream.

Like, I remember getting that first audition and being like, “Oh, this is my dream job, and there’s no way I’m gonna get it, but I’m gonna give my all for this audition.” And then I got another audition, and I was like, “Oh wow, here’s the end of the line now, but I’m still gonna give it my all.” And then, you know, here we are now on Broadway.

So it was always just one of those shows that I I knew this story needed to be told and I was so excited by the way that they were planning to tell it. Um, and and so I just knew that I was going to give my all to it for as long as they would let me.

Simon: That’s amazing. Yeah, and and and just for folks awareness, um, when you say the public you mean the public theater.

Jenna: Yes, the public theater in new york.

Simon: [00:10:00] Yeah, that was um, I think partially an answer to this question but but I just want to give you both a chance to give a pitch to longtime theater-goers, to people listening who have never been to a Broadway play, or maybe even a musical, why should they why should they go out and see Suffs?

Shaina: We’re in a scary moment right now in this country on so many levels. Let me try and talk about a few of them. One is that I think we’re in a place where a lot of people in government would prefer our young people to not learn about our history. And as we’ve seen, you know in so many curriculums and book banning and all sorts of things that conservative politicians are trying to do to roll back our kids’ ability to learn about our past and to reckon with the truth of our past, especially when it applies to racism and sexism.

And, you know, I think people’s movements for liberation in this country. The theater is a safe place where we still get to do that. And, you know, and there’s a lot of freedoms being rolled back in this country, but our freedom to express ourselves on stage and to tell [00:11:00] these stories of our past and to reckon with them and to hold up a mirror of what this country has been and to, to show what we can maybe be in the future.

Gathering in a theater, it feels like it’s like our civic scripture. It’s like these stories of our past are our secular mythology. Um, and the theater is a place that, you know, I, as a writer, as a woman, as a Jewish person, I have gotten to write exactly the kind of play that I want to write, and it is on a stage for people to see, and no one is arresting me for doing it.

Not so in Russia. You know, like here in America, we can still do that. And it’s, that’s something to celebrate and something not to take for granted. And I think Suffs is a place where you get to revel in that. Where every night, we feel that visceral, energetic, collective electricity that is being

written about and they often, you know, you’re scrolling your phone reading about it, come to the theater and experience it in person with us, in a group of people celebrating people power, protesting, marching all this. There’s a huge [00:12:00] sense of joy in the show. And, you know, maybe you’re listening to this 40 days from now, no matter what happens, I do, I tried to fashion Suffs in such a way that it is not contingent on any one political moment.

And I hope and people in our audiences, I know I’ve experienced this at our stage door with some, we get in the theater, you get to talk to the audience members after the show at the stage door, which is just another beautiful element. People have expressed that it gives them a sense of inspiration and hope in this moment to know that our ancestors, uh, one extremely unlikely,

insurmountable seeming political and social victories in much harder times and that we can do that again now.

Jenna: And Suffs really, we have been performing it during highs and lows, right? We had a show the night that the Roe decision leaked, and that was when we were performing at the public theater, but we felt those intense moments of fear and those intense moments of needing a place of solace.

And SUFFS has provided that for all of [00:13:00] us time and time again during those hard times. But on the other side, it’s been an incredible place to be during those moments of joy. We’ve had performances, you know, there’s, there’s so much happening every single day right now, and to know that no matter what the news is, good or bad, that we’re gonna be feeling it in that theater, and we’re gonna feel it as a collective, with the audience, with everybody on stage, and backstage.

There’s nothing like it. It’s so immediate, and it’s so visceral, and I think that it’s something that can’t be recreated in any other area. So, if you want to come and just like, feel things with a thousand of your closest friends, this is the place to do it.

Simon: Absolutely. And, I know, um, in, in one of the promos for Suffs, Melissa McCarthy says, you know, this is, this is, uh, it’s, it’s both a relevant, and very entertaining, um, Melissa McCarthy, for people who don’t know, is an actor, uh, gave an iconic performance in Bridesmaids and has been in a bunch of other, other, [00:14:00] um, uh, movies and, and, and productions, but, um, so anyway, she definitely knows funny, uh, and entertaining. And I’m just curious, um, Shaina, I’ll start with you, but just how do you make something that is both entertaining, but also does teach people something, but isn’t like, you know, homework, um, yeah.

 

Simon: This is,

Shaina: I have so much to say on this. Well, because it’s so fascinating to me, because my process of trying to write the show, to try and make it entertaining and fun, while also informative and deep. The Suffs themselves were trying to brand their message as important and political, but also non threatening and okay, you know.

And the way we try and frankly, sell the show to consumers in this way of like don’t worry, it’s fun, it’s funny, it’s entertaining. We promise. It’s not a drag It’s not boring. It’s not it’s not your mom scolding you. We promise. It’s fun. There’s so many parallels there that I [00:15:00] find like just to speak about the suffs themselves you know our show opens with a song called let mother vote which is sort of my song version of the messaging that the more conservative faction of the suffrage movement tried to put out there which was a Don’t you love your mother?

If you love your mother, don’t you want her to have this, just, just let her vote. It’s just like, it’s a way to thank your mother for being so sweet. And don’t worry, it’s not gonna change anything. It’s just one day a year, just let her have this night. They’re trying to package and brand female, uh, political enfranchisement as something non threatening, something inherently feminine, and whereas Alice Paul and the Younger Wing come along and their song is called, We Demand an Amendment.

We demand equality now. You know what I mean? We don’t deserve, we don’t deserve the vote because we’re women, we deserve the vote because we’re American citizens, and we’re gonna stand in the street where we’re not supposed to be and demand it. This is tale as old as time in terms of like, the division in activism, you see it today in so many contemporary movements that I’m around sometimes, how do we, how Do we, do we do a sit in at the Capitol Hill and court [00:16:00] arrest to make headlines or do we lobby behind the scenes and develop, you know, long term relationships, uh, diplomatic relationships with the legislators and lobby, you know, it’s, it’s, oh, I feel like every movement has its, its version of this.

Jenna: And they work together. It’s not just that like you need one and that’s the right way to do it, like consistently time and time again throughout history, like these two movements work in tandem with each other in many ways, like even though they might disagree with each other’s tactics like you oftentimes need both for true change to happen because they do work in opposition to each other.

But what that means is you’ve got pressure from two sides.

Shaina: It’s such a good point and that one of my provocations in the show is you need the Carrie Chapman Catt’s, who was the older more moderate leader, and you need the Alice Paul’s, you need, who’s younger more radical. You need the Nancy Pelosi’s and the AOC’s, you know. And that I think for a social movement to thrive you need a multiplicity of tactics, but it’s funny with Suffs I think sometimes people who haven’t seen the show are predisposed to be like, oh that [00:17:00] shows not gonna be fun.

Like that shows gonna be boring. And our need to sort of reassure people that it’s fun. It’s a double edged sword because obviously I’m biased, but I think it is fun. And, and it’s, I want to ensure people they’re going to have a good time, but also it’s sort of funny, right. I feel like often stories, it’s just interesting with that.

Is there sexism that plays in there? It’s a genuine question of like, other serious, hard hitting, political pieces of drama I feel like don’t have to reassure their audiences as constantly that they’re gonna be a good time.

Simon: Yeah, and another element of the show that I think comes through really well is that everything is contingent, right?

It’s progress is not guaranteed, things don’t move, you know, things don’t just get better and better and better as time goes on. We certainly got a reminder of that with the decision to strike down Roe by the Supreme Court. I’m just curious, based on that, you know, the one of the things that you’re both working on is our campaign, that we are, the NYCLU [00:18:00] is also a part of, and that podcast listeners have heard me talk about quite a bit if you’ve listened to several of our episodes on this, but Prop 1 would, among other things, we would codify abortion into our state’s constitution.

Jen, I’ll go to you first, but, um, can you talk about Prop 1 and, and why New Yorkers should support it?

Jenna: New York has, for a very long time, been a beacon for some of the, some of the rights that humans deserve. And this is just another example of ways that New York can vote to ensure equality for

people who, you know, are oftentimes viewed as, you know, expendable by society and New York can vote to say, No, we want equality for all. And we’re going to make that a constitutional amendment. And once, this is a constitutional amendment, it’s much harder to take those rights away. And, you know, this would be protecting women, and LGBTQ folks, and disabled people, and, you know, the list goes on [00:19:00] and on and on, but this is about protecting the people you love and also ensuring your own equality and your own safety.

And we can be that example then for other states to say, we want to put this into our constitution, our state constitution, and then it doesn’t matter who’s in office. It doesn’t matter who’s on the Supreme court. We the people have spoken and we, the people have that power. There are more of us than there are of them.

They might be our leaders, our elected leaders, but we still have a voice. And if we’re voting for this, we are putting our vote into the things that we really care about.

Shaina: I mean, I couldn’t have said any better. Those are such good points. So, you know, New York we are the home the Statue of Liberty. This is the home of give me your tired,

your poor, your huddle masses yearning to breathe free. This is supposed to be this city that represents equality and justice for all in a safe harbor and all the things. And so I think we need to kind of walk the walk as New Yorkers. Especially, you know, as you said at a time we cannot count, [00:20:00] unfortunately, on the Supreme Court to protect these rights on the federal level.

I think it’s incumbent on the states and a leader like New York to kind of step into the breach and say, we’re going to do it here in New York. And I think also set that example of, I believe, I mean, you know, I’m not a political scholar, so someone fact check me on this, but I think that this would be like the first comprehensive equality constitutional amendment on the state level of its kind in the country.

And hopefully that, inspires other states to follow suit. So we have an opportunity to like start the trend here in New York.

Jenna: I think it’s also really interesting you mentioned the Statue of Liberty and I learned this at our stage door the other day. One of our audience members is a tour guide at the Statue of Liberty and she was telling me that the Statue of Liberty was designed so that she is moving forward.

The movement of the statue looks like she is moving forward. And it was because the artist wanted to make sure that it was never forgotten that you always have to move forward for progress. You can never be stagnant. You can never say like, oh great, we’re the beacon. We did it. We’re [00:21:00] here. It is always about forward progress.

It is always about moving forward. And this is another example of creating that forward progress.

Shaina: And it’s in the hands of the people. That’s like what’s so great about it being a ballot measure. We get to decide. This isn’t as you were saying like can’t be left to the whims of any one administration versus the other. Just it reminds me of the suffs.

I mean why they push so hard for a Constitutional amendment specifically is how ingrained and enshrined that is. It is really hard to change the Constitution. When they were trying to do that, they were laughed out of town. I mean it was like you want to change the Constitution? Who do you that doesn’t we don’t do that you know that only. But they knew that if it was only, if it was left to the states, it would, it would not last.

Simon: Yeah, and I know SUFFS has done some work to get out the vote and, and spread the message you’ve, you’ve just both very, very well put out there. I know SUFFS did a, a, an event in, um, May, the NYCLU SUFFS Night. Can you talk about that and any other efforts that, um, SUFFS specifically is doing to, to, um, fight for Prop 1?

Jenna: [00:22:00] Suffs is in an interesting position because it is a, a musical and it is, it is, you know, housed in a Broadway theater. Suffs as a show is nonpartisan. And I think it’s really important to also like, everybody is, is welcome in our theater. Everyone should feel welcome and represented in our theater. Suffs is nonpartisan.

Shaina and I are partisan, right? Um, and you know, there are, so we as individuals, very much can, you know, say that we are standing for certain issues. And so I think that’s an important thing to just be aware of that we as individuals are supporting prop 1, not necessarily suffs the musical.

Shaina: Totally. And it’s, it has been a, uh, education,

for me in terms of like what is possible at the end of the day. Broadway theater as wonderful as it is is like a capitalist commercial venture like anything else. And as much as I just extolled the virtues of it being this like haven for civic storytelling [00:23:00] which it is, it is also a business. And we don’t own a lot of it, you know, it’s, it comes with complications.

Let’s just put it like that. So, but I’ve been really heartened by how hard our team has worked behind the scenes and so much of the Broadway community has tried to come together to do what we can within the environment that we’re in to do nonpartisan, get out the vote drives. And, um, there’s an amazing new organization called Broadway votes.

Uh, that is a lot of shows, not just suffs, although suffs is a big part of it, coming together to make sure people are registered, doing all kinds of like activations on social media and, uh, Uh, doing some curtain speeches the week of the election.

 

Jenna: I think it’s about really educating people that it is important to vote.

And I will forever, I don’t care if you’re going to vote a different way than I vote. I want you to vote. I want your voice to be heard. I want you to let people know that you care. And that you care about your neighbors, you care about the future of the country, whatever, whatever you think is best vote for that.

Um, and so I think that suffs has been [00:24:00] doing a lot to really make sure that people are registered that people know where to vote and how to vote and, you know, are aware of some of the shortfalls of, of voting and, you know, making sure that people are exercising their right in the best way they can.

Shaina: And also, you know, I’ve had, I’ve been like, I wish we could have a voting booth every day and we could do all this stuff and I wanted to like do all this stuff and

I’ve also a thing I’ve tried to have to accept or I guess embrace also is that like everyone has a role to play in, in a movement. And one like us as artists, we’re we’re fulfilling a role to tell the story, to to express it through art, to provoke thought, to inspire. And that like there are so many organizations doing the heavy lifting of getting out the vote that are that’s what they’re excellent at and they have the data and the years and of experience and infrastructure to have those get out the vote efforts.

We have the data and infrastructure and years of experience in our art. And so [00:25:00] we are bringing that to the table. And that that can, that counts. I, I’m just speaking for myself, like I’ve had to be like, I’m not doing enough. It’s not enough. It’s not enough. And I’m like, we have a role to play as well. You know, and even like getting our cast album out there that I hope, you know, young people can listen to and get excited about voting just from listening to a song of ours from Spotify. If that can help the effort that the art, the arts have a meaningful role to play as well.

Yeah.

Jenna: And you don’t have to necessarily agree with the people around you, right? You can, you and your best friend can both want to vote yes on prop one. But also have different opinions on who should be governor, right? And you can vote that way. And that’s, that’s, there’s nothing wrong with that. Um, and I think that suffs is a really great example of the people in our show are so incredibly diverse and they have such different opinions and they all agreed on this one thing of, we think that, you know, women should have the right to vote. But the methods and how they wanted that to happen and why they wanted women to have the right to vote was completely [00:26:00] different.

So, you know, it’s really important, I think, to remember, voting is about you, it’s about your thoughts and your opinions, and we come together as a collective to do that. So

Simon: I know you are both, um, NYCLU artist ambassadors. Can you both talk about what the artist ambassadors program is? Um, Shaina, if you want to talk about, you know, the, the process of how that started and, and what you, you both do as, as artists ambassadors.

Shaina: Yeah, well, it was sort of born out of the Sing Out for Freedom concert, which used to be the Broadway Stands Up for Freedom concert that I think is almost 20 years old at this point, if not longer. I’ve been involved in for many, many years. And there was always kind of a group that came together to sort of curate and plan that concert.

And in the pandemic, I, Uh, asked Donna Lieberman, who’s the executive director of NYCLU, what if we kind of activated that group a little more, just beyond the annual concert? What if we made some sort of like year round programming and organized artists to amplify messages for the NYCLU? What would that [00:27:00] look like?

And over the last, wow, I guess four years, We’ve worked to plant real roots for that program and grow it. Uh, I’m co chairs for it with Ariana officer, November, Christine and Nick Casetto, and the amazing Ari Conti has also shepherded the program with us. And we tried to, you know, it’s about right now, 50 artists who all have made a commitment or pledge to use their platforms to amplify messages and campaigns for the NYCLU. Also have made a commitment with their time sort of to be an ambassador.

There are, you have to sort of pick, you can pick from a variety of options to engage. There’s showing up at in-person events and, and other things. And what I’ve loved is we’ve really gathered together as a group to do a lot of just good old fashioned organizing. Like we went on a lobby day to Albany. Jenna and I went together to, we got up at 5 AM and got on a bus and did an all day lobbying day, which was my first lobby day, it’s so fun.

Jenna: They don’t tell you that anybody can just go to the Capitol and lobby, like anybody can go.

And what an incredible thing to actually [00:28:00] see how the government works and how important we the individuals, the voters, are like it was such an eye opening experience.

It

Shaina: was. And it was so it was just like this is democracy in action This is what we’re there in Albany in this giant like underground tunnel.

They’re all these different groups from different campaigns. We were there for New York for all for protecting the rights of immigrant New Yorkers. And was like this is what it should be. It’s like we elect the officials. We are the people.

Jenna: And then they hear from us.

Shaina: Yeah, so it’s nice to It’s it just was in to go with a group of people to spend the day and to get to know each other on the bus. And to talk to legislators and to come at it from the perspective of artists who I think one of the reasons I was passionate about organizing artists is because I think artists are naturally good organizers, social and political organizers, because we know how to tell a story.

We know how to give a message.

Jenna: Or even just get in character for it. Yeah. I have to like put on the character of like, I am an extrovert comfortable talking to strangers, but like. We can do that as artists. Totally. We’re able to kind of get into the character of like, what am I talking about today? [00:29:00] And it’s things that we truly believe in, but we’re able to approach it with many different tactics that, you know, artists are just naturally good at doing that.

Shaina: That’s a great point. Yeah. We’re people people. So, so we’ve done that. We’ve lobbied. We’ve marched for the past couple of years in the Queer Liberation March with the NYCLU Artists Ambassador Contingent. Um, we have gotten together to kind of just have like teach ins on certain topics where we hear from NYCLU litigators and field organizers to kind of like learn about the issues so we can talk about them better and it’s been really great.

Jenna: Those are my favorite of the teach ins. Yeah, yeah. Where we just get to come in like an expert gets to, it reminds me of like, in quarantine when people started doing those PowerPoint parties, where it was like everybody would choose something that they were super passionate about. And you would like get on a zoom call and they would share their screen and do a powerpoint about something that they were like super excited about and interested about. And it’s that but on a much grander scale.

It’s like actual experts talking about things that you don’t get to just like pick someone’s brain about hey, what’s it like being a litigator? And what you know tactics should [00:30:00] we know and what things should we be aware of as far as like our own civil liberties and rights? It’s so interesting and it empowers you in so many different ways.

Shaina: Yeah.

Simon: And speaking of different tactics, one of the things that I think that suffs really, really does a good job of highlighting is there are multiple different ways to try to change people’s opinions. I, I, I feel like when I’m reading the news, reading political news, a lot of it is about, you know, the, um, public opinion is here. And thus,

politicians are moving in the direction that public opinion already is, right? But Suffs really does a good job, and I think there’s, there’s too little, um, thought about this. I think, in the political world about, like, changing someone’s opinion. Because an opinion is, does not have, like, 51 percent or more support, does not mean that it’s just, well, I guess it’s never gonna happen.

Whatever you want needs to, needs to have majority support today. How do [00:31:00] you think about, and, and how did actually, you know, being a part of and writing, um, suffs sort of make you think about the ways, um, to change people’s opinions?

Jenna: I love, there’s an Oscar Wilde quote that I am completely obsessed with. That he said, um, life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

And I love it because I think that art is one of the main ways to change people’s opinions. When we consume art, it opens our perspective. It opens our idea of what’s possible for ourselves, for the future, for the worlds we live in. Oftentimes, you know, if, if, if you’re just looking at your own given circumstances of, you know, the town you live in or the family you come from, sometimes you don’t see yourself represented.

You don’t see what’s possible. And by going to art as an example, you’re able to see so many more possibilities for yourself, for your futures, for the people you love. And I think art really does have [00:32:00] the power to change minds. Um, And the main reason I love the quote is that we also want our life to look like the art we see.

So if that art is really beautiful, forward progress of inclusion and diversity and all of these, these things that we care so much about, we’re more likely to be comfortable with that in our own lives. And that is huge because when you then have a more diverse group of people around you, that’s going to change your opinions.

So it might start from feeling comfortable with it because of the art you see, but it’s going to end with you actually having diverse opinions in your life.

Shaina: And I’ve often thought like for better and worse and mostly where it’s easy. It’s easier to get people to care about a fictional character than it is a real person,

sometimes. We love art. We love stories. We love TV. We love book. We, you know, theater like you people fall in love with characters and care. You can get more people to tune in to find out what happens to a character next than you [00:33:00] can get to like read the news or engage that. I don’t think that’s because people are shallow or don’t care.

It’s because we are led by our hearts. So art is an amazing place to kind of Trojan horse in some of that stuff because like maybe I live in a rural county. Maybe I’m raised in a kind of conservative place, but on the TV show I love there’s a trans character who I love and I’m worried about and I am I I’m I’m rooting for them and there. Because it’s amazing writing or amazing acting. And then I’m like, oh, they’re just, they’re not some, you know, thing that’s been demonized for me by politicians.

They’re a real person just like me. Or you may be someone who thinks that feminism is scoldy and naggy and not for you, or as maybe a guy, maybe like, I don’t know if I want to say I’m a feminist. I don’t know what that, but hopefully maybe you come see Suffs and you see a character like Dudley who is a man, you know, kind of like awkward guy who, uh, with a good conscience who changes his mind. [00:34:00] And I put him in there because I hoped that for men, I don’t want only women to feel like seen by suffs. For like you, you might sit and watch them be like, Oh, I want to be like him.

Jenna: I want to be the ally.

Shaina: Yeah, I want to be. I also like that. It just a humanity, humanity first. So I think that the arts is, we, my friend Ari Afsar, who’s one of the co chairs of NYCLU artists ambassadors, likes to say art changes culture and culture changes policy. That I think that like we, we have an opportunity to humanize the issues for people.

Simon: Uh, is there anything else that either one of you would, would like to, um, to say on, on anything we’ve talked about or anything, anything else?

Jenna: I’m just so excited that so many of these issues are being talked about. That people are able to, like, hear lots of different opinions about, like, why prop one matters. Because I think that, you know, when it’s just a, if it’s just on your, your, your pages, you’re voting, you might not really think so much about the big picture.

And I love that we’re getting to have these conversations that zoom out. It’s not just words on a [00:35:00] page. It’s, it’s your civil liberties, it’s your freedom and how incredible that in this time we have the ability to, with our little pen in our voting booth, say that we are that we care about that.

Shaina: Yeah, and we care about our neighbors, too. It’s just like these issues can feel kind of intellectual or heady but it’s I think about it like someone you love at some point is going to need an abortion. And wherever you are in your own life religiously or politically, think about someone you love in your life who needs health care at an important time. Would you want that health care to be denied them? You know, and like this is an opportunity for you to say hell no, I, I, I’m not going to let that happen to someone I love, and I’m going to make sure that everyone I love in this state is going to be able to get the health care they need when they need it.

And we get to do that, uh, as citizens of the state.

Jenna: Yeah, and as a disabled woman too. It’s always so empowering [00:36:00] for me to see any kind of legislation that is protecting people with disabilities. There’s remarkably little legislation actually protecting people with disabilities. And so it’s any, any, any time I see a constitutional change that says like we, we are going to make sure that people with disabilities have equal rights, that’s huge because disability is something that can happen to anybody at any time, at any moment.

And you should have the right to be protected, to keep your job, to keep your healthcare if you become disabled, and, you know, Prop 1 helps to ensure that that happens for New Yorkers.

Simon: Well, that is a beautiful place to end it. Thank you, Jenna and Shaina. Thank you so much for doing this and for um talking about prop one and and suffs. This was great.

Jenna: Thank you.

Shaina: Thanks for having us. Thank you so much

Simon: Thank you for listening. You can find out more about everything we talked about today by visiting nyclu. org And you can follow us at nyclu on instagram [00:37:00] Twitter, and Facebook. If you have questions or comments about Rights This Way, you can email us at podcast at nyclu. org. Until next time, I’m Simon McCormack.

Thank you for fighting for a fair New York.