They’re merely soldiers in petty coats? Right? Think again, Mary Poppins, these are not your grandma’s suffragettes. I mean, technically, from a timestamp point they’re you’re grandma and maybe even your great-grandma’s suffragettes, but this is a whole new spin on the movement and after its critical success on Broadway, it’s currently touring its way across the nation as a part of the Broadway Across America series. What show? Suffs, of course! As penned (music, book, and lyrics) by Shaina Taub, this gripping new musical tells the story of women’s suffrage in the United States. And in a TheatreBloom exclusive phone interview, we’re talking with Maya Keleher, who replaced Shaina Taub for the First National Tour, in the role of Alice Paul. And we couldn’t be happier to be speaking with her!

Hello, Maya! This is Mandy from TheatreBloom! I’m so very excited to speak with you and thank you so much for giving us some of your time!

Maya Keleher: Of course, I’m happy to, and yes, this is exciting to get to talk with you!

I’m still over here reeling because when I looked at who I was getting to interview, I had this “Holy Moses” moment of ‘she’s the second-person ever to have this role.

Maya: Yeah it’s kind of wild! I don’t know if I’ll fully wrap my head around that until after the tour but I know my family is very proud of that. It’s wild to be the second person— and after the person who wrote the show!

That is pretty wild and amazing. How did you come into Suffs? How did this land in your lap?

Maya: I was coming at this from six years of auditioning and receiving six years of ‘no’s.’ So I was I the trenches of the actor-rejection-cycle. And still working at it. Suffs came to me initially with a self-tape, which is what a lot of us start our audition process with. I was just in my living room, putting a couple songs and a scene, taping it on my phone, sending it off to my manager, and hoping for the best. A couple weeks later, I got pulled into the callback process. I think I went through maybe two callbacks and a movement call? I think I did the self-tape in March and I found out I booked the job on April 29^th (of 2025) so it all happened pretty fast, considering how long I had been pounding the pavement.

Congratulations! Did you have any working knowledge of Suffs before getting involved? Had you seen it or heard it or was this more of a ‘I’m throwing my hat in the audition ring’ because I want work?

Maya: It was kind of both! I hadn’t seen the show but I had friends who had gone in for it on Broadway, so I was semi-familiar with the music. I had been hearing things about it, as you do in the theatre community. But I didn’t get a chance to see it. Then I was also coming from the place of, “I want to book a job, I want to do theatre, I’m going to keep trying to do this, I’m going to throw some spaghetti at the wall, see if it sticks, and this time it did!”

I love that you made the ‘spaghetti’ reference, I was about to! And I’m glad you’ve got some ‘sticking spaghetti’ here with Suffs, what a great show to be doing at this time in the world where we’re currently living. What has this process been like for you? I know that you said you were in the rejection cycle for the better part of a decade, and to land something and for it to be something this significant, must be a real experience for you.

Maya: It has been very zero to one-hundred. All the sudden I’m rehearsing this show and it’s been amazing! They gave me a lot of room to make Alice my own, so creating this version of Alice, being thrown into press engagements pretty early on, TV interviews and things like that? It was very zero to one-hundred; it’s been a huge learning experience but one that I’m very, very grateful for. And it’s also been a dream come true. So many of us who dream about doing theatre, dream about leading a show like this, and I rarely leave the stage in Suffs. So when I go to take that first step on stage, for my first scene with Carrie Chapman Catt (Marya Grandy) and the show? I am stepping onto this two-hour adventure, and that is a dream come true. I have always wanted to take on something like this.

That sounds fantastic. Now you mentioned that you’re playing Alice Paul, and I know you just told us that she’s basically on stage the whole time, how is she similar or different from other roles you’ve had in the past? And what is it like taking on a character of this magnitude?

Maya: In a lot of ways it has been a gift because I don’t have a lot of time to think about other things happening around me. I can just really stay in the story and stay really present the whole time and that is something I really cherish. It’s also challenging; it’s very grueling to be able to prepare myself for the day to be able to take on Alice. But it’s also been a very rewarding challenge because I’ve learned so much about myself in being able to tackle this hard role. I feel like the character of Alice in this story of the suffrage movement that we’re telling? She’s always teaching me new things as we go through. Alice changes with me as I change on this year-long engagement.

I love hearing that! Now you had also just mentioned that this has been a challenge, what would you say has been your biggest challenge coming into touring life, or this role and this show? What would you say is the ‘oh my gosh I cannot believe I’m tackling this challenge?’ for this show?

Maya: I think it’s the physical and the mental game of it all. This show is surprisingly physical. It’s not really a dance heavy show but we’re doing a lot of really physical and rather intense things with our bodies throughout the process of it. I don’t think I was fully expecting what I would need to do for myself to sustain that for an eight-show week and to sustain that on a touring schedule. And mentally, you know, we’re changing venues all the time, which means our orchestras change, some of our backstage personnel change, the sound system is going to feel different in every city. So really having to stay true to the story, stay consistent with the story, stay consistent with my show while also finding ways to be as flexible as possible as things change, that can be a real challenge. And I’ve had to learn how to do that really fast and on the fly. But it’s a great skill to have!

Oh absolutely! And even beyond the physical interior of the ever-changing venues, bearing in mind that I don’t know the exact touring schedule for Suffs, it’s my understanding that the tours are sort of moving the way they were before the pandemic where one week you’re in a place like Minneapolis the next might be California…

Maya: Yes, lots and lots of travel!

So I can imagine changing weather and climate and geographical regions must be a challenge too.

Maya: Oh yeah! Or even like when we were going back and forth with an hour’s time-zone change for a couple of weeks there. It made a difference! We were all feeling it a little bit. The travel aspect of doing a show and doing an eight-show week is very grueling. And I don’t think a lot of people realize that just when they think about people touring. But once you’re in it— it’s like “wow.” Because it takes a lot more preparation and a lot more stamina than you would expect.

I am glad to hear you’re living up to the stamina challenge! Now, what would you say is the moment in the show— and there’s a good shot you might be apart of it as you said your character never really leaves the stage— what is that moment that really speaks to you, Maya, on a personal level?

Maya: This one has come up for me in the last couple months and it has become very clear. In the second act— and I don’t want to give too much away here but— Alice has reached this breaking point, essentially. And she says this line out loud. She says, “I don’t understand why I always have to explain why I am the way I am and why I want what I want. I’m not crazy and I shouldn’t have to justify myself.”

I feel like those are such powerful words for a woman to be saying on stage in front of a lot of people. I think a lot of feel that way on a variety of different levels in our life. And I think it’s something I really deeply relate to. I just want to be able to go through my life and to do what I want without explaining it, without justifying it. And then I get to go and sing this beautiful song called “Insane” which is pretty much saying “if all of the effort I have put into this movement is for naught, then that’s fine, I will go insane. But I am deciding to keep fighting anyways.” For me, that is the crux of who Alice is. That’s when she’s at her lowest and that is the core of why she fights so hard.

That is an extraordinary sentiment. Now am I correct in understanding that this is an all women (and/or female presenting) show?

Maya: Yeah it’s all women and non-binary people, even the male characters.

Have you ever been a part of a show that’s all women/non-binary?

Maya: No. First time! Also our entire creative team was women and non-binary people. Our music director is a woman, a lot of our backstage crew are women, we only have a couple men in our backstage crew, which is also very special. I think all of that really creates a specific experience for all of us, because we all care about getting to tell this story in this way. We’re getting to tell our story to people. And that is happening on every layer in this company.

Why would you say that Suffs has a strong relevancy here in 2026? We’d all like to think that we ratified the 19^th amendment, hooray, yay, women get the vote. But. We are standing here in unprecedented times, in what we thought were established, inalienable rights, that are now being rolled back and stripped away from all sorts of people in this country. So where do we think the relevance is hitting for this right now?

Maya: I think you just said it, right? We’re seeing voting rights on the line right now in a lot of different ways for a lot of different people, which is really disheartening to see. Even in scanning out to a broader lens, I think Suffs just taps into activism in general and shows us how history repeats itself. It shows us how there are always going to be people fighting for a better world and fighting for more rights because we deserve them. I think that’s a important message when people are feeling uneasy or they aren’t really seeing hope for the future or hope in the current climate. I think that’s what Suffs does. I think it helps remind people that we can fight for what we believe in but there is always going to be a fight. And though that may be tiring, there is hope in the fact that there will always be people fighting for what we deserve.

Absolutely and that is such an important thing to remember, especially in these challenging times. Is there a— I hate using the word ‘favorite’— but is there a musical number, either that you sing or don’t sing, that you really just feel like “that’s the number, I want that one!”

Maya: Oh! I don’t know— let me answer in a different way. I love singing in group numbers with this group of people. Everyone is an amazing vocalist and the blends we have together feels really, really rich and wonderful. So when we get to sing this song in the first act called “The March”, which is this big march on Washington— one of the first of its kind in history, actually— it’s all of us out there, singing together, these beautiful harmonies that Shaina (creator of Suffs, Shaina Taub) has written, singing, “we demand to be heard, we demand to be seen, we demand equality.” That moment in particular, I love being a part of it. It hits different in every state, it hits different every week, it hits different with how the world feels, but it always feels really powerful and amazing to sing that with everybody.

THAT sounds like a moment that I cannot wait to witness when you roll through Baltimore.

Maya: I can’t wait for you to see it!

Now, Maya, we have to get personal for a moment here…

Maya: Okay— I’m ready!

Can you tell us a little about how Betty is doing?

Maya: Oh! Hahaha! YES! Betty is doing great from what I hear!

Ooh! Betty is not on the tour with you?

Maya: Betty is not on the tour with me. She has popped in and out when my husband is able to drive her to nearby cities. She was in Boston with me, she was in Philly with me, and she’ll join me in DC…

But not Baltimore!?

Maya: Sadly, no. She will not be in Baltimore. She is currently in Cranford, New Jersey with my husband living her best life, going on so many walks and hikes and being completely spoiled by my husband, and she is doing great.

I love that for Betty. What flavor of magic is Betty?

Maya: Betty is an English Springer Spaniel, she is brown and white, she always looks really sad, but I promise you she is not always sad that is just her face. That is her resting puppy-pout-face. I get to see her— we have a week off before coming to Baltimore and I get to see her after several months of having not seen her so I am very excited!

So exciting! Thank you for sharing Betty with us! As a fellow fur-mom, I always get so excited to learn when my interviewees have fur-babies— I actually had an interviewee on tour last season who had her cat on the tour with her, it was wild!

Maya: I actually am hearing more and more that people have their cats going out on the road with them and I am so surprised by this! Betty is not a chill dog so I do not think she would thrive with all the constant travel, you definitely have to have an animal with the right temperament to be living the tour life, for sure!

For sure indeed, but I’m glad to hear Betty is living her best life up in New Jersey.

Maya: She is, she is so spoiled rotten.

Yay! Now back to you, we know you have the dream role here, but if you could write a ticket and play any other character in the show, who would you play?

Maya: I think I would love to play Wilson, Woodrow Wilson. I love the music that Woodrow gets to sing. I love the way Shaina has written Woodrow Wilson, and I love the way Jenny Ashman, our Woodrow Wilson, plays Woodrow Wilson, so I am very much in awe of her and what she does and it very much makes me want to give my own try at it!

Awesome. Now you’re doing something quite unique, though more recently popularized in musical theatre as of late, where you’re embodying a real-life figure from history. Though I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that are probably not as many people who are going to recognize name and sight of Alice Paul as there would be for oh, I don’t know, let’s say Alexander Hamilton.

Maya: Correct!

What is it like tackling that challenge when you come across the history buff who does know Alice Paul or who knows about the suffragettes and their movement? How has that been fitting into what you’ve been doing, I know you said you’ve been making her more your own now that you’ve taken over the reigns from Shaina Taub.

Maya: Yeah this kind of goes hand in hand with the idea that Suffs is taking on a broader lens of the movement. For me it was helpful, once we got into rehearsals, to be able to bring so much of myself to her so that she feels very, very human. And also we’re telling a bigger story than just Alice here. So Alice doesn’t have to be 100% historically accurate. And the script itself takes some liberties for the sake of telling a solid story that makes sense in a limited amount of time. That kind of helped me take the pressure off of it. I love the idea that the show is showing a broad idea of what an activist is, so whoever gets to play Alice Paul next— be it in the junior version, one of the high schools that won the grant— they get to make it their own because it will be their own version of being an activist.

I think maybe at first I was a little daunted by the idea of taking on a historical figure. But once we got into the room, I had the script in front of me, and the wonderful music that Shaina has created, it felt like honoring the specificity of what she created was going to help us just engage in the story the best way that we could. Being able to honor what was on the page was always going to be my way through it. We will always have people who are like “well this wasn’t historically accurate” but at the end of the day, we’re getting people excited and interested in history that hasn’t really been told and that’s the end goal. Does that answer your question?

Oh absolutely! I always forget to say this at the top of the interviews with people— I tell a lot of the junior actors, the kids, who I interview that there are no wrong answers, just so long as words are coming out of your mouth— that was a perfect answer to that question. I love that you said it’s getting people engaging with untold history. What is it that you are hoping people are going to take away from coming out to see Suffs?

Maya: I hope they leave with maybe a little bit of hope. I hope they leave feeling some type of connection to themselves and to the people that were sitting in that audience with them. I think it is a really collective experience going on this journey of Suffs as an audience member. I also hope that they leave curious. I hope they leave going “Wow, I didn’t realize any of this.” And that they leave wanting to do a little google search or read a book about these people because we do just scratch the surface. There are so many layers to the suffrage movement that connect to other movements in history. My husband has been in the audience for over 20 performances collectively now, and he says that there are some audiences at the intermission, he calls them “a google audience” because everyone is on their phone googling the characters from the show and actively learning new things. And that’s what I hope for! I hope it intrigues them to want to learn more and to understand how we got here and how that might affect our future if things change.

I can relate to what your husband calls the “google audience.” I know there’s no intermission for Six but the whole night and day after I took my mother to see it a few years ago, she was calling me to tell me all these things she’d looked up about the wives and she had no idea; she was on a deep-dive for days! Now, I know you’ve mentioned the broader scope of activism presented in this show, are there any causes that you find yourself being particularly invested in?

Maya: I don’t know if I have anything specific necessarily to share but I am always talking to people about our basic human rights, which I think are unfortunately always on the line for a variety of different groups in our country. I love people. I think people are so important and so cool and so different and that’s what I love about them. I’m always thinking about that and how I can connect with more people.

What would you say being a part of Suffs has taught you about yourself? What’s your big personal takeaway here?

Maya: Oof. It has taught me so much! It has taught me that I can do really hard things and it has taught me that I can take on more than I think I can. That I am a highly capable human being.

I truly love that for you. I know we just talked about what you’re hoping people will take away from seeing the show, and how much you love people, but why— especially with so many other things that could be occupying our attention— why should we come out and see Suffs?

Maya: Because you’re going to have a real human experience. You’re going to laugh. You’re going to question things. You probably will shed a tear or two. You’re going to see yourself in these women and men on stage. You’re going to have a real human experience and I think that’s what we love to bring to people every night at Suffs.

I am so excited to see this show. Final question: if you had to sum up your experience with Suffs, from when you sent the tape in, getting the role, being in the show, on the tour, sum that all up using just one word, which word do you use?

Maya: It’s more of a saying. But it would be “dream come true.”  

Suffs plays May 26^th 2026 through May 31^st 2026 at The Hippodrome Theatre inside The France-Merrick Performing Arts Center— 12 N. Eutaw Street in Baltimore’s Bromo Arts District. Tickets are available by calling the box office at 410-837-7400 or purchasing them in advance online.