INTERVIEW: Ally Bonino on the opportunity and obligation of performing ‘Suffs’
Photo: Suffs features Ally Bonino, second from left, as Lucy Burns. Photo courtesy of Joan Marcus / Provided by official site.
Ally Bonino is currently featured in the Broadway musical Suffs. She plays the real-life character of Lucy Burns, who joins the fight for women’s suffrage in the early part of the 20th century. What the audience encounters throughout the show are the many opportunities and challenges that these women faced while trying to enfranchise half the citizenry of the United States.
For Bonino, who is making her Broadway debut, her journey with Suffs began with a welcome email while out for breakfast with a friend.
“Normally I don’t have email alerts, but today for some reason my phone dinged,” Bonino said in a recent phone interview. “And there was an email from [producer] Rachel Sussman, and she was like, ‘You should be getting something from your agents any minute now.’ And sure enough, a moment later my phone dings again, and it was my reps at the time. They’re like, ‘We have this offer for you to do a reading. Shaina Taub has a piece that she has been working on. Leigh Silverman is directing, and it’s being hosted by the Public.’ And I just remember seeing Shaina’s name, Leigh’s name and the Public. I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m in. I’m onboard,’ and that was back in early, early 2018. So then we did that first reading. From there, it just took off.”
Taub, a multiple Tony Award winner for this musical, is responsible for the book, music and lyrics. She also portrays the role of Alice Paul, who is a fellow marcher and friend to Bonino’s Lucy. The cast features a talented group of actors, including Jaygee Macapugay as Mollie Hay, Tsilala Brock as Dudley Malone, Kim Blanck as Ruza Wenclawska and Jenn Colella as Carrie Chapman Catt, among many others. One of the most important characters is Ida B. Wells (Nikki M. James), a Black suffragist who pushes to have the movement represent all women, not just white women, according to the show’s educational resources.
Taub’s creation was well received and eventually led to a successful off-Broadway run at the Public Theater, and now the show has transferred to Broadway’s Music Box Theatre. All along the way, Bonino has been there to portray Lucy on stage.
“I love Lucy,” Bonino said. “I love her so much. She’s such a deeply rich and complicated character. I feel like with her there’s a lot going on under the surface of what maybe is on the page, which is really exciting to have the gift as an actor to delve into a character and bring her into three dimensions. But, yeah, my approach to her has always been [that] she is the quintessential ride-or-die best friend, always has your back, so I always approach her with how can I support you, how can I uphold you, how can I love you.”
At the end of the show, without giving away too much, Lucy makes a profound decision. The fight continues on, but Lucy takes a long, hard look at her role within the movement and tries to figure out her next steps. For Bonino, this ultimate decision is an important one, and she needs to internalize it at every single performance.
“It was very clear to me from very early on in this process that I have to earn that song at the end,” she said. “I have to earn the right to say, ‘Hey, I did what I came here to do. I have supported and upheld everybody around me, and now I have to take care of myself.’ I have to earn that, so it’s like the entire show up until that point is like how can I push myself further? How can I physically make it look like when I’m being thrown to the ground, I’m really being thrown to the ground, and the brutality that they suffered in prison, and the relentlessness of the movement at that time, so it’s been a really wonderful challenge to every night sort of reassess: How am I going to earn that song tonight? … And I tell you, every single part of my body hurts, and I’m so tired. But it’s been very rewarding to have that opportunity.”
Suffs tells a story that is unfortunately not always known to students of history. Bonino said when she landed the part of Lucy she also needed to fill in the blanks and research the biographies and stories of these suffragists.
“I hadn’t learned any of it,” she admitted. “The only thing that I had learned in school, I think, was that Woodrow Wilson passed the 19th Amendment. That is all that I knew about. I had known about Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth, and I had heard of Seneca Falls before. But this is just not taught in history classes, and I took AP U.S. History for like two years in a row. It was not taught to me, and I have to wonder why that it is. It’s very curious as to why such a big part of our history … is not outwardly discussed, but, yeah, I came into this knowing very little. And then after that first reading, I just went down a rabbit hole in terms of research and discovering these women, who are not so far removed from us, if you think about when this was all happening. I mean, there’s a T-shirt that’s trending right now that’s like, ‘Alice Paul would solve a moon landing.’ These women were not so far removed from where we are today, and yet they have just been erased in our history.”
Because there’s acknowledgment that the lessons of Suffs are being shared with the audience members perhaps for the first time in their lives, the cast feels an obligation to make sure they portray this story and its complexity accurately and authentically.
“It’s not lost on any of us, I don’t think, that we have a real opportunity and obligation every single time we perform this piece, whether it’s at the Music Box or if we’re doing a performance at a benefit somewhere,” said Bonino, who has performed in Dogfight, Merrily We Roll Along and Myths and Hymns. “It’s really not lost on us that we are really people’s launchpad into these women and into this story and into this history. It’s a real honor. It’s an honor to do it, and also you feel the heaviness of it. You feel like, I don’t want to screw this up. If this is people’s first introduction to this, I want to do it right. I want to make sure that we are honoring these women and this very complicated legacy as best we can. We talk about it all the time backstage. Today is a great day to change someone’s life. Today is a great day to inspire someone and to get someone more involved in their communities. It’s not lost on any of us how cool and also important this piece is.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Suffs, featuring Ally Bonino, continues at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. Click here for more information and tickets.
