Video: Kick Off Women's History Month with the Women of SUFFS
Mar 8, 2024
In this video, watch as the cast and creative team including Jenn Colella, Nikki M. James, Anastacia McCleskey, Emily Skinner, Tsilala Brock, Grace McLean, Ally Bonino, Hannah Cruz, and more tell us about the women in their lives who inspire them every day.
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A woman who inspired me, I could say my mom, but having just become a mom myself, I'm going
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to actually throw it down to my little girl. And she's inspired me for different reasons, not because I want to be what she is, but
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because she's inspiring me to be more than I am, to make this world a better place so
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that she can have a full and beautiful life of her dreams
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So I'm inspired forward by my little girl. A woman that has inspired me, her name was Hattie Mason Guthrie
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She was my mother's mother. She was fearless. She was smart. She taught herself so many different things
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She had, I think, an eighth grade education, yet she was able to round up so many people
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She was also an activist in Nashville, Tennessee, and organize and get people registered to vote
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So Hattie Mason Guthrie. My hero of my life is my mother, Melinda Parker Skinner
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When I was a little girl, I used to go to ERA marches with her
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So the fact that she's going to get to come and see me in this show now makes me cry
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I am inspired by my three-week-old daughter. I have a daughter named Morrison
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She just came into the world, and I feel like she's been here before, so I am welcoming
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her back, and I am assuring her that any time mommy is gone, it's because I'm doing something important
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I would love to shout out Janine Tesori, who is legendary. She's the most accomplished woman composer in the field ever, and she's a badass
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She's my president. Happy Women's History Month. I am shouting out my great Aunt Merle, Esther Swan Williams
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She was an educator in Bermuda. She started the adult education school
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She has never stopped searching, learning for community to build people up
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Who I am today because of Aunt Merle. I would like to shout out my grandmother, Suzanne Lim, who was a third-grade school
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teacher and was, you know, I didn't get to know her for very long, but everybody that
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knew her loved her so much. She is where I know I got my love of performing
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I would love to shout out my mom, Joanne Bonino, Jobo. She's the strongest, kindest, most empathetic person I know
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I am the person I am today because of her trust in me, her faith in me, the love that
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she has instilled in me. I love you so much. You're perfect
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Never change. I want to shout out my mom, Mama Cruz, Jackie Cruz
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She has been my inspiration without her, I'm not sure I would be here today
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She's the one who drove me to all my college auditions and then was still okay with me
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not going to college and who helped, like, the fact that I'm on Broadway today is because
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of her. So, I just want to give her a big ol' shout out. I am going to shout out my associate director, Lori Elizabeth Parquet
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Lori has been with me since the beginning of SUFFS, which feels like the beginning of
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time itself, and she is fierce, incredible, brilliant, talent bomb. I want to shout out my grandmother, Marsha Kaplan
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She taught me how to dress, she taught me how to be a member of a family and how to
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expand that love to everybody around me. My mother. I just feel like, you know, it's the person that I bump heads with the most, but it's
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because she pushes me and she is fearless and I think about everything that she's been
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through and everything that she's done and has accomplished and I feel like I'm always
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following in her footsteps
#Broadway & Musical Theater
#Parenting


