Cherry Hill West performed the award-winning musical “Suffs” for the public earlier this year, with cast members discussing their experience being a part of the show on Aug. 12 in partnership with the Alice Paul Center. “Suffs” tells the story of the American suffragist movement and the friendships, heartbreak and action that brought women together – or, in some cases, tore them apart.
“The show was really special to me because it gave me an outlet,” said rising senior Sophia Capprotti, who played women’s rights activist Alice Paul. “It’s an interesting world out there right now and I, as a 17-year-old, have a lot of emotions all the time. (The show) really gave me somewhere to put that emotion and feel like I was utilizing it. It made me feel like I was doing something, and that’s what theater always does for me, it helps me build relationships with everyone. It really is just about getting to express myself.”
Alice Paul was born in 1885 in Mount Laurel, and grew up on her family’s farm, where her mother’s commitment to the suffrage movement and time at Moorestown Friends High School helped inspire her activism. She later earned advanced degrees and became a leading figure in the fight for women’s voting rights, organizing protests, marches and the famous 1917 White House pickets that helped pressure President Woodrow Wilson to support the 19th Amendment.
“My favorite part, and it’s always been my favorite part, is making the audience feel something,” said rising junior Chase Engelson, who played attorney, politician and activist Dudley Field Malone, who also served as an ally to the United States’ 28th president, Woodrow Wilson. “It’s so cool to do something and have other people feel the reactions that they’re supposed to feel.”
“I consider myself a singer first, that’s what I like to do,” said rising junior Makayla Becker, who played Phoebe Burn, mother of Harry Burn, the youngest member of the Tennessee state legislature who cast the deciding vote in favor of ratifying the 19th Amendment. “I love the way that theater is able to use music in a way that… Most music is about storytelling, but theater really uses music as a method of storytelling in a way that can completely transport you. There are very few things that are able to transport you the way that seeing and being in theater does.”
Last year, the Educational Theatre Foundation and Musical Theatre International awarded West a grant to put on the musical for the public in April. The grant, announced in partnership with “Suffs” creator Shaina Taub, called upon schools to design their own outreach program connected to their production in the spirit of the theme “the young are at the gates”, a callback to one of the songs in the musical. Winning schools were selected based on how creatively and meaningfully they incorporated the theme into their proposal. Cherry Hill High School West, one of 12 schools awarded the special grant, partnered with the Alice Paul Center for Gender Justice in Mount Laurel to engage students and the community in exploring the history and themes behind the musical.
After Capprotti was cast as Paul, she did a lot of research and fell in love with the iconic figure. Capprotti found Paul to be very interesting– something she didn’t expect–and in doing so, she also learned a lot about herself.
“Through the Alice Paul Center I got to learn about the inner workings of her brain that I might not have gotten to learn anywhere else because I was in her space,” Capprotti said. “You learn a lot about people in their space. It really gave me a personal clip of Alice, not just what she put on for everybody else or what she presented to everyone, it was just her in her raw form.”
Theater has become second nature to Engelson, who started acting at a young age. He believes that the older you get the more self-conscious you become about doing things like theater, but with his experience, he’s never afraid to get on stage.
“If I had one piece of advice it would be try not to care as much because no one around you cares what you’re doing, they all care about what they’re doing, so don’t care as much,” he said.
What Becker loved about “Suffs” was not only getting to introduce people to incredible women, but also brilliant music. For Becker, theater is about evolving and finding yourself as you get older. You don’t have to be a certain type of person to be into theater, she added, and she advised other actors to not get caught up in what they think theater is supposed to look like.
“Theater doesn’t need to be your whole passion, it can just be something that lives as a part of you,” Becker said.
