NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — It seems the stars have just aligned for a touring production opening in Nashville Tuesday night. For one, it's here just in time for Women's History Month. The show's also playing right in the middle of the area where some of the story is set.
Suffs is a national touring production running at TPAC until March 8, a two-time Tony winning show. It's hard to imagine TPAC having a show with more historic relevance to the area around the building. That's because it's right through there the things happened in 1920 that ensured women could vote.
Suffs is about the women's suffrage movement.
If you're standing in front TPAC, facing out, turn to your left. That's the Hermitage Hotel. It was the command post for both sides of the women's suffrage debate.
"Just imagine! What if the walls could talk?" said Dee Patel, managing director for the Hermitage Hotel. "The movement became known as the War of Roses. If you were in favor of women's right to vote, you wore a yellow rose. If you were against, you wore a red. There was colluding and there was spying and there were strategy meetings."
Just down the street from TPAC is someone else who knows this story; Karen Johnson, the Register of Deeds.
"The history from this is being told, and it's right there in everyone's view," Johnson said.
Again, standing in front of TPAC facing out, turn to your right. There's the state capital.
"Harry Burn cast that deciding vote," Johnson said.
"He's the young legislator who received a letter from his mother," Patel added.
On August 18, 1920, the Tennessee legislature ratified the 19th amendment by that single vote. Women could vote.
"It is part of American history," Patel said.
"It changed things for women, not African American women, but for women," Johnson continued.
Johnson has long been interested in telling this story. She's formerly the president of the Tennessee Women's Political Caucus, which provided the seed money for a suffragist monument in Centennial Park.
"We wanted something there, so generationally, what happened here with women's suffrage was not lost," Johnson said. "To build a suffrage monument here in the capital city was something near and dear to my heart."
Telling that story is something Suffs is also doing. There's an interesting thing for the audiences seeing the show. When they leave the theater through the front doors, they can look to left, look to look the right, and see where some of the story really happened.
"I'm just excited we get to have that incredible play that has a real deep relationship to the city," said Patel.
"For future generations, that history will continue to be told," said Johnson.
Do you have a positive, good news story? You can email me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
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