NEW YORK: Shaina Taub was in the audience at “Suffs,” her buzzy and timely new musical about women’s suffrage, when she spied something that delighted her.
It was intermission, and Taub, both creator and star, had been watching her understudy perform at a matinee preview last week. Suddenly, she saw audience members searching the Wikipedia pages of key figures portrayed in the show: women like Ida B. Wells, Inez Milholland and Alice Paul, who not only spearheaded the suffrage fight but also wrote the Equal Rights Amendment ( still not law, but that’s a whole other story).
“I was like, that’s my goal, exactly that!” Taub, who plays Paul, said from her dressing room later. “Do everything I can to make you fall in love with these women, root for them, care about them. So that was a really satisfying moment to witness.”
Satisfying but sobering, too. Fact is, few audience members know much about the American suffrage movement. So the all-female creative team behind “Suffs,” which had a high-profile off-Broadway run and opens Thursday on Broadway with extensive revisions, knows they’re starting from zero.
It’s an opportunity, says Taub, who studied social movements — but not suffrage — at New York University. But it’s also a huge challenge: How do you educate but also entertain?
One member of the “Suffs” team has an especially poignant connection to the material. That would be producer Hillary Clinton.
She was, of course, the first woman to win the US presidential nomination of a major party, and the first to win the popular vote. But Clinton says she never studied the suffrage movement in school, even at Wellesley. Only later in life did she fill in the gap, including a visit as first lady to Seneca Falls, home to the first American women’s rights convention some 70 years before the 19th Amendment gave women the vote.
“I became very interested in women’s history through my own work, and writing and reading,” Clinton told The Associated Press. And so, seeing “Suffs” off-Broadway, “I was thrilled because it just helps to fill a big gap in our awareness of the long, many-decades struggle for suffrage.”
It was Taub who wrote Clinton, asking her to come on board. “I thought about it for a nanosecond,” Clinton says, “and decided absolutely, I wanted to help lift up this production.” A known theater lover, Clinton describes traveling often to New York as a college student and angling for discounts, often seeing only the second act, when she could get in for free. “For years, I’d only seen the second act of ‘Hair,’” she quips.
Clinton then reached out to Malala Yousafzai, whom Taub also hoped to engage as a producer. As secretary of state, Clinton had gotten to know the Pakistani education activist who was shot by a Taliban gunman at age 15. Clinton wanted Yousafzai to know she was involved and hoped the Nobel Peace Prize winner would be, too.
“I’m thrilled,” Clinton says of Yousafzai’s involvement, “because yes, this is an American story, but the pushback against women’s rights going on at this moment in history is global.”
Yousafzai had also seen the show, directed by Leigh Silverman, and loved it. She, too, has been a longtime fan of musicals, though she notes her own acting career began and ended with a school skit in Pakistan, playing a not-very-nice male boss. Her own education about suffrage was limited to “one or two pages in a history book that talked about the suffrage movement in the UK,” where she’d moved for medical treatment.
“I still had no idea about the US side of the story,” Yousafzai told the AP. It was a struggle among conflicting personalities, and a clash over priorities between older and younger activists but also between white suffragists and those of color — something the show addresses with the searing “Wait My Turn,” sung by Nikki M. James as Wells, the Black activist and journalist.
“This musical has really helped me see activism from a different lens,” says Yousafzai. “I was able to take a deep breath and realize that yes, we’re all humans and it requires resilience and determination, conversation, open-mindedness … and along the way you need to show you’re listening to the right perspectives and including everyone in your activism.”
When asked for feedback by the “Suffs” team, Yousafzai says she replied that she loved the show just as it was. (She recently paid a visit to the cast, and toured backstage.) Clinton, who has attended rehearsals, quips: “I sent notes, because I was told that’s what producers do.”
Clinton adds: “I love the changes. It takes a lot of work to get the storytelling right — to decide what should be sung versus spoken, how to make sure it’s not just telling a piece of history, but is entertaining.”
Indeed, the off-Broadway version was criticized by some as feeling too much like a history lesson. The new version feels faster and lighter, with a greater emphasis on humor — even in a show that details hunger strikes and forced feedings.
One moment where the humor shines through: a new song titled “Great American Bitch” that begins with a suffragist noting a man had called her, well, a bitch. The song reclaims the word with joy and laughter. Taub says this moment — and another where an effigy of President Woodrow Wilson (played by Grace McLean, in a cast that’s all female or nonbinary) is burned — has been a hit with audiences.
“As much as the show has changed,” she says, “the spine of it is the same. A lot of what I got rid of was just like clearing brush.”
Most of the original cast has returned. Jenn Colella plays Carrie Chapman Catt, an old-guard suffragist who clashed with the younger Paul over tactics and timing. James returns as Wells, while Milholland, played by Phillipa Soo off-Broadway, is now played by Hannah Cruz.
Given its parallels to a certain Lin-Manuel Miranda blockbuster about the Founding Fathers, it’s perhaps not a surprise that the show has been dubbed “Hermilton” by some.
“I have to say,” Clinton says of Taub, “I think she’s doing for this part of American history what Lin did for our founders — making it alive, approachable, understandable. I’m hoping ‘Suffs’ has the same impact ‘Hamilton’ had.”
That may seem a tall order, but producers have been buoyed by audience reaction. “They’re laughing even more than we thought they would at the parts we think are funny, and cheering at other parts,” Clinton says.
A particular cheer comes at the end, when Paul proposes the ERA.
“A cast member said, ‘Who’d have ever thought the Equal Rights Amendment would get cheers in a Broadway theater?’” Clinton recalls.
One clear advantage the show surely has: timeliness. During the off-Broadway run, news emerged the Supreme Court was preparing to overturn Roe vs. Wade, fueling a palpable sense of urgency in the audience. The Broadway run begins as abortion rights are again in the news — and a key issue in the presidential election only months away.
Taub takes the long view. She’s been working on the show for a decade, and says something’s always happening to make it timely.
“I think,” she muses, “it just shows the time is always right to learn about women’s history.”
‘Suffs’ musical with Malala, Hillary as producers has timing on its side
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‘Suffs’ musical with Malala, Hillary as producers has timing on its side
- ‘Suffs’ is a Broadway musical that focuses on the American women’s suffrage movement
- Pakistani Nobel laureate says musical helped her see her activism from a “new lens“
REVIEW: ‘Squid Game’ enters a holding pattern
- Second season of the hit Netflix show feels tentative, ahead of its upcoming finale
LONDON: The success of “Squid Game” in 2021 made a second season an inevitability, rather than a mere possibility proffered by a hopeful epilogue scene. But because this smash-hit show came out of South Korea, there was also an optimistic air to its steadily approaching release — could this addictively bleak dystopian thriller sidestep a lot of the Hollywood pitfalls and deliver a second season that was at least the equal of the first?
Although it’s a sidestep of its own, the answer is… we’re not sure yet. And that’s because, although it’s billed as season two, these seven new episodes were shot back-to-back with season three (coming in 2025 and confirmed to be the last). So what you’re essentially getting here is the setup for the big finale still to come. That perhaps explains why, though the first season dropped viewers into the murderous titular competition pretty quickly, the actual ‘game’ of the second season of “Squid Game” doesn’t start until midway through the third episode. Before that, we’re reintroduced to main protagonist Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-Jae, still far and away the best thing about the show). Having won the first season’s brutal series of children’s games (for which the losers’ penalty is death), Gi-hun is spending his reward money trying to bring down the organizers of the competition, teaming up with season one detective Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) in an attempt to topple the shady cartel that is pressganging cash-strapped Koreans into murdering each other for money. When his plan to catch the game’s Front Man fails, he instead joins the latest intake, intent on helping the contestants escape with their lives.
It’s an odd choice to spend so long building up to the competition — and even dallying on whether it can be proved it even exists — when that’s what viewers are here for. Once the games get going, “Squid Game” is as breathless and shocking as ever, and with a new cast of characters, there are fresh backstories to mine and some pretty pointed social commentary on greed, capitalism and social care (Korean commentators have suggested that the subtitles miss a few of the nuances of the script, which may be why some of the satire seems a little on the nose). Perhaps acknowledging what audiences will remember, there’s also a few decent twists that deserve to remain a surprise.
But while season two of “Squid Game” is still great television, there’s no small amount of bloat here — and a sense of treading water for the final round still to come.
Incoming: The hottest TV shows set to air in 2025
- From long-awaited returns to emotional send-offs, via some intriguing new material, here are the series we can’t wait to see this year
‘Severance’ season 2
Starring: Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower
The first season of this darkly humorous sci-fi tinged psychological thriller brought deserved critical acclaim for its creator Dan Erickson, and directors Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle, as well as its brilliant cast. The show focuses on a group of employees at a mysterious corporation who have agreed to undergo a procedure known as “severance,” which divides their memories between their time in and out of work, thus creating two different lives, with distinct personalities, but who begin to question both the ethics of the procedure, and their own reasons for accepting it.
‘The Last of Us’ season 2
Starring: Bella Ramsey, Pedro Pascal, Gabriel Luna
Not just a great video game adaptation, but a great show in general. This post-apocalyptic drama is set a couple of decades into a pandemic in which a fungal infection turns its hosts into zombie-like monsters and centers on a teenage girl (Ellie) who is somehow immune to infection and the smuggler (Joel) who agreed to escort her on a journey across the US and gradually becomes a father figure to her. The chemistry between Ramsey as Ellie and Pascal as Joel is utterly convincing and the series, like the games it is based on, is a quietly devastating work of art.
‘Stranger Things’ season 5
Starring: Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown
One last visit to the Upside Down, and one last visit to Hawkins, Indiana, to catch up with psychokinetic Eleven and her friends as they fight to save the Earth from the aforementioned alternate dimension. Over the last decade, “Stranger Things” has been one of the biggest shows in the world — an irresistible mix of horror, sci-fi, coming-of-age drama, and Eighties nostalgia. Here’s hoping showrunners The Duffer Brothers can stick the landing.
‘The Bear’ season 4
Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ayo Edebiri
After the dizzying heights reached in its first two seasons, the third outing of this hyper-tense kitchen-based drama (it barely seems worth repeating that — despite its Emmy categorization — “The Bear” really isn’t a comedy) was something of a stagnant disappointment. But a disappointing episode of “The Bear” still beats the best efforts of 90 percent of what’s on television, and it wouldn’t be a great surprise if season four is a triumphant return to form for ace chef Carmy Berzatto as he strives to make a success of his family’s titular restaurant. There’s a lot on the line, though, with season three ending just as Carmy starts to read the make-or-break restaurant review that could mean he loses his financial backer.
‘Zero Day’
Starring: Robert De Niro, Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Plemons
A political conspiracy thriller that looks like being one of the most intriguing new shows of 2025. With a stellar cast and some serious pedigree among the creators — showrunner Eric Newman (“Narcos”), former NBC News president Noah Oppenheim, and The New York Times’ Washington correspondent Michael S. Schmidt — this story focuses on a former US president, George Mullen (De Niro), who is called out of retirement to investigate a cyberattack responsible for killing thousands of Americans.
‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’
Starring: Peter Claffey, Dexter Sol Ansell, Finn Bennett
If “House of the Dragon” isn’t enough “Game of Thrones” universe for you, then here’s another prequel, this time based on George R.R. Martin’s “Tales of Dunk and Egg” novellas — set almost a century before the events of “Game of Thrones. The show will focus on hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk) and his young squire Aegon Targaryen (Egg), who will grow up to become King Aegon V and sit the Iron Throne, and their wanderings across Westeros. Martin has given the show his seal of approval, saying after visiting the set that the cast seemed to have “walked out of the pages of my book.” The approval of the fans may be harder to earn.
‘Black Mirror’ season 7
Starring: Awkwafina, Paul Giamatti, Emma Corrin
Season seven of the acclaimed sci-fi/horror anthology series created by Charlie Brooker is confirmed as returning this year with a run of six episodes, two of which, Brooker told the audience at Netflix’s Geeked Week event in September, are “basically feature-length.” There’s little information about the stories so far, but the little we have is pretty exciting — one will be a sequel to one of the show’s most-loved episodes, the season four opener “USS Callister” (pictured).
REVIEW: ‘Beast Games’ — the biggest prize in TV history, and a telling snapshot of our times
DUBAI: It’s a high bar, but “Beast Games” might be the most cynical TV show ever produced. Amazon — owned by Jeff Bezos; estimated net worth $251 billion — throws a reported $100 million at 26-year-old social-media behemoth Jimmy Donaldson (aka MrBeast; estimated net worth $500 million) so he can make a reality competition show that borrows heavily from a hugely successful fictional South Korean show and gives the “largest ever cast” (1,000 participants) the opportunity to win $5 million (the “largest ever single prize”) and a host of other ‘smaller’ (i.e. still huge) prizes along the way.
Why? Probably not because the studio execs — or Bezos himself — are huge MrBeast fans. But think of all the data to be mined when the latter’s 340 million YouTube subscribers sign up to Amazon Prime — that’s the kind of payoff that makes it worthwhile (and $100 million for Amazon is kind of like a regular person’s $5).
And what do the audience get in return for surrendering their personal info to the rapacious advertiser and retailer? Basically “Squid Game” without any deaths, but with much of that show’s energy and aesthetics. Donaldson and his crew of long-time friends/assistants have built careers out of giving away huge amounts of money to people for completing challenges (or snatching it from them if they fail), and now they’re doing it with higher production values.
The tasks (at least in the first three episodes) are straightforward, childish even (catch a ball; throw a ball into a receptacle…), but the mind games are intense — often, competitors must sacrifice themselves so others can continue. Those that choose to do so look absolutely bereft. If you’re wondering whether anyone involved in “Beast Games” picked up on the fact that “Squid Game” was intended to satirize the spiritual vacuum of late-stage capitalism via the portrayal of the gleeful exploitation of desperate, cash-strapped people for entertainment, we’re guessing the answer’s no.
Still, as a TV show, “Beast Games” is compelling in its way — think “Ultimate Fail” videos crossed with “The Traitors.” It’s slickly packaged and fast-moving (within the first half-hour, half of the contestants are culled), like MrBeast’s YouTube content. The psychology is fascinating — the weird notion so many of the contestants have that they’re “destined” to win a game of mostly chance and not much skill, or that, somehow, “needing” it enough will see them through; or the way that, within a matter of hours, herd mentality and peer pressure make people forget that they’re competing to try and secure life-changing money for their loved ones rather than impress a group of almost-strangers to whom they owe nothing.
“Beast Games” keeps you engaged, then, but it doesn’t keep you invested. That’s partly because Donaldson and co., who come across as affable and a bit goofy online, haven’t made the jump to “traditional” media comfortably. Particularly Donaldson, who, as a gameshow host, lacks warmth and charisma and spends much of his time shouting dystopian catchphrases (“Everyone has a price!” or, gazing down on the contestants from the wall of Beast City, “They look like ants!”).
It will be an enormous success.
Incoming: The hottest movies set for release before summer 2025
DUBAI: From fortune-making franchises to family-friendly fun, here are some of the biggest films coming out in the next few months.
‘Snow White’
Director: Marc Webb
Starring: Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, Andrew Burnap
The latest in a flurry of live-action remakes of classic Disney animated movies (see also “Lilo & Stitch,” due out in late May) sees Zegler take on one of the most iconic fairytale princesses from the company’s considerable catalogue. Disney has certainly invested wisely in its writers — the musical fantasy was penned by Erin Cressida Wilson (“Secretary”) and Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird,” “Barbie”) — and with a nostalgia-hungry audience pretty much guaranteed to turn up in theaters, this will likely be one of the year’s biggest hits with families.
‘Paddington in Peru’
Director: Dougal Wilson
Starring: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Emily Mortimer
This third instalment of the hugely popular franchise based on Michael Bond’s children’s books sees Paddington and his adoptive family, the Browns, head to Paddington’s homeland of Peru, where — they have learned — Paddington’s Aunt Lucy is pining for him. When they arrive, though, Aunt Lucy has gone missing in the jungle, and during their search for her, Paddington and the Browns are separated.
‘Captain America: Brave New World’
Director: Julius Onah
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas
Onah says this fourth installment in the “Captain America” film series will show Sam Wilson (previously The Falcon) “stepping up to be the leader as Captain America” having been handed the iconic shield by Steve Rogers in “Avengers: Endgame.” When Wilson finds himself at the center of an international incident involving the president, he must use everything he’s learned about being a hero to put things right.
‘Mickey 17’
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette
This long-delayed feature from acclaimed South Korean director Bong Joon-ho (whose 2019 black comedy “Parasite” picked up Best Picture and Best Director Oscars) keeps the dark humor, but shifts to a sci-fi setting. It stars Robert Pattinson as the title character, an ‘expendable’ space traveler sent on a dangerous mission to colonize an ice planet. When one Mickey dies, another is cloned with most of his memories intact. But when the titular 17th iteration accidentally survives, problems naturally arise.
‘Black Bag’
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela
Modern indie cinema pioneer Soderbergh has become one of the planet’s finest crime-thriller directors, so giving him actors of the caliber of Blanchett and Fassbender for this spy thriller about a pair of married intelligence agents — George and Kathryn Woodhouse — should pay off handsomely. When Kathryn is accused of betraying her country, George’s loyalties are tested to their limits.
‘The Amateur’
Director: James Hawes
Starring: Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Caitriona Balfe
British director Hawes helms this adaptation of Robert Littell’s 1981 novel. It’s a thriller about a CIA cryptographer Charles Heller (Malek) whose wife is killed in a terrorist attack. Realizing that his bosses are paralyzed by conflicting priorities, Heller blackmails them into training him as a field agent, then sets out to exact his revenge on those responsible for his wife’s death.
‘Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning’
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames
Ethan Hunt and the gang return (and, despite the title, probably not for the last time) in this direct sequel to 2023’s “Dead Reckoning — Part One.” It continues the story of Hunt's battle against the Entity, a rogue AI capable of controlling Earth’s defense and financial networks. Cruise will be hoping that the relatively disappointing box-office performance of “Dead Reckoning” was just a blip in the long-running franchise’s success.
‘A Minecraft Movie’
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Emma Myers
Given the success of films based on video games or board games in recent years, a movie based on “Minecraft” — the pop-culture phenomenon sandbox game that has sustained its popularity for more than a decade now — was all but inevitable. The resulting adventure comedy centers around a team of misfits who are “pulled through a mysterious portal into the Overworld: a bizarre cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination,” according to a Warner Bros. synopsis. “To get back home, they’ll have to master this world … while embarking on a magical quest with an unexpected, expert crafter.”
The Year Ahead: Five of the hottest games coming your way in 2025
Dubai: A look at the hottest games coming our way in 2025.
‘Grand Theft Auto VI’
Rockstar Games’ open world action-adventure series has become one of those creative works that transcends its medium — so the release of “GTA VI” will likely be gaming’s biggest moment of 2025, as likely to make broadcast news headlines as to whip up a social-media frenzy. Its reveal trailer already smashed YouTube records for non-music videos, racking up 46 million views within 12 hours, and 101 million within two days, and sparked a huge spike in Spotify streams for its featured track, Tom Petty’s “Love Is a Long Road.” The game will feature the series’ first female protagonist in a quarter of a century — Lucia, a Latina woman — and her male partner as they try to evade law enforcement around the fictional state of Leonida (a thinly disguised Florida), including Vice City (a thinly disguised Miami) and visit South America too. Expect the usual blend of amoral/immoral action and pop-culture parodies (social-media influencers are apparently a major theme) along with gameplay that will keep you engaged for weeks.
‘Assassin’s Creed: Shadows’
The 14th major installment in Ubisoft’s action-adventure franchise takes the action over to 16th-century Japan, towards the end of a long period of civil wars. Considering how big a part stealth plays in all “Assassin’s Creed” games, ninjas seem a natural fit, and indeed, one of the two central figures of “Shadows” is Naoe, a female shinobi (the game’s stealth mechanics have undergone a major and welcome upgrade, too). The other is Yasuke, an African samurai apparently inspired by an historical figure of the same name. Players will once again be embroiled in the millennia-long conflict between the peace-and-freedom-seeking Assassin Brotherhood and the Templar Order, who believe peace can only be attained through control. After a difficult year for the French publisher, there’s a lot riding on this title.
‘Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game’
Games based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” tend, unsurprisingly, to be foreboding, violent affairs focused on the great battles between good and evil. So this life simulation game from Take-Two Interactive Software will make a refreshing change, allowing you to play a Hobbit without any great responsibility beyond making your idyllic corner of Middle Earth as welcoming and homely as possible — foraging in the forest, fishing in the crystal-clear lakes, gardening, trading with the townsfolk, and cooking for your fellow Hobbits to help build friendships.
‘Death Stranding 2: On the Beach’
Game designer Hideo Kijima is one of the biggest stars in the gamers’ galaxy. He first made a name for himself as the creator of “Metal Gear” at Konami before setting up his own studio, Kojima Productions, and releasing the genre-defying, slow-burn epic “Death Stranding” in 2019, in which the vast majority of the player’s time was spent trekking across post-apocalyptic mountainous landscapes to deliver parcels to isolated communities and attempt to reconnect the shattered chiral network (the internet, basically). Logistical skills were vital. It wasn’t for everyone, but if you bought into it, it was hugely rewarding and surprisingly emotional. Comparisons with some of the isolation felt worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, which arrived shortly after the game’s release, were inevitable, and Kijima has reportedly leaned into that for the sequel, which once again has a stellar cast. Norman Reedus and Léa Seydoux return as main protagonist Sam Bridges and his ally Fragile, while Elle Fanning also joins.
‘Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza’
The latest spinoff from the “Like a Dragon” action-adventure series sees fan favorite Goro Majima, a former Yakuza, taking the helm of his own pirate ship — and crew — after losing his memory. He goes in search of a fabled hidden treasure in islands surrounding Hawaii, including Honolulu, where last year’s excellent installment “Infinite Wealth” was set. Naturally, the game includes sea combat as well as the series’ regular beat ’em up combat style, and also sees the return of a few favorite minigames, including karaoke.
