Tony award-winner SUFFS rolls into Greenville this month. With it comes a talented cast of triple-threat performers playing the fascinating personalities behind the women’s right to vote movement. Among them is recent Yale grad Victoria Pekel, who plays Phyllis Terrell/Robin.

We found out Victoria is the great-granddaughter of South Carolina’s own fascinating personality, Elise Martin Jones, renowned for her dedication to voter rights and a Richlands County poll worker well into her 90s.

We caught up with Victoria to talk more about the show and what it means for her to return to South Carolina, portraying a part of history that her great-grandmother helped shape.

 

What SUFFS the Musical Is About 

At its core, SUFFS is the most beloved of American tales, the underdog story. It’s about people who were supposed to play small and keep quiet, but instead, they did the opposite, risking their lives to win the most basic function of democracy—the right to vote by passing the 19^th Amendment.

SUFFS drops audiences into the thick of the story, amid the many disparate and passionate (and hilarious) personalities that made up the early suffragist movement. We meet the movers and the shakers, the women who were ready to go toe-to-toe despite threats and intimidation. We discover their human shortcomings, their loves and losses, their reasons for joining and staying in the fight. All around, SUFFS is the kind of musical that sweeps audiences into an exquisitely written tale, full of soaring song numbers, colorful characters, and sumptuous period costumes.

“But SUFFS isn’t just a history lesson,” Victoria told us. “I think it really is a living story. It’s about people who fought for their voices to count, like my great-grandmother.”

The audience responses to SUFFS, across the country, have been fervent, partially because the show is so viscerally recognizable. “The audience reactions have been so powerful,” Victoria said. Some theatergoers are in tears, some ecstatic, some eager to deep-dive into historical research about the women they just learned about onstage. “We get to speak to people at the stage door who have just seen the show. Sometimes they’re people who lived through these eras of history who are wearing the sashes their grandmothers wore. I just find that so powerful, to see the reaction we’re getting and the connections that we get with our audience.”

When SUFFS runs in Peace Concert Hall, you’ll get the chance to become part of the audiences whose lives have been deeply touched by this incredible show. 

“The whole cast is so dedicated to telling these stories and being these characters—it adds another layer to the experience, for sure,” Victoria said. “I love being able to bring this story around the whole country. It’s awesome. I get so moved by how many people are fired up about the show.” 

 

Elise Martin Jones, Victoria Pekel, and SUFFS 

Victoria Pekel’s great-grandmother, Elise Jones Martin, didn’t just watch as history unfolded, she jumped directly into it, just like the women in the show. Martin’s work for voter rights and poll safety in South Carolina started in the 1940s and continued for another 60-plus years. This family history placed Victoria in the perfect position to bring an intensely personal experience to her performance in SUFFS. 

Even though Victoria is from Minnesota, her connection to The Palmetto State runs deep. “When I think of my mom's side of the family, our roots, it always comes back to South Carolina. My great-grandmother was born before the 19th Amendment passed in 1915 in Hartsville, SC,” Victoria said. “Our family reunions have always been back in South Carolina with her as the matriarch. I grew up hearing her speak about the work that she did volunteering at the polls for decades. I think there was always something in my mind focused on activism and that kind of work. I knew my family was involved. But it really did hit doing this show.” 

During rehearsals, her great-grandmother Elise’s stories began to take on a more significant meaning. “It touched me to think these historical women are a woman I know that I grew up speaking to, who brushed my hair, who told me stories,” Victoria said. “And she’s there at all of these critical points that we get to portray in the show. As we got to each part in the play in the rehearsal process, [the reality of my great-grandmother's life] really started to resonate.”

“Thinking about women’s work on the ground, that is both in SUFFS and my own family history, is the most powerful thing. There are some really beautiful lyrics that the amazing writer Shaina Taub crafted in the show that focus on generational, cyclical change. One of the repeated motifs is ‘I want my mother to know I was here, I want my great-granddaughter to know I was here.’ And I get to sing that line which is one of my favorite parts of the show,” Victoria said. “Because I think of my great-grandmother Elise, who was just a girl when all of this was happening, picturing me, her great-granddaughter 100 years later, still thinking about some of these same things. I have to sometimes tap out of it a little bit to be able to perform the song without just breaking down.”

Elise Martin Jones died in 2023 at the astounding age of 108. But her life story, and her legacy, live on with Victoria in SUFFS.  

“When I think about my great-grandmother's life, it wasn’t just about being present in history, it was about shaping it. She was an organizer, a civic champion for generations. She was working to help her community. Even though I’m quite a bit younger than she was when she was doing so many amazing things, I try to keep that in mind. I majored in Political Science at Yale, so I’ve always been deeply in love with history. I think it’s because of her and her connection to history.” 

But SUFFS—the musical story and Victoria’s story within it--is also about joy, about finding your voice and making yourself heard, and about the power of people coming together. For Victoria, it’s also about coming home. 

“It’s so powerful to be able to perform this show in South Carolina,” she said. “I think of South Carolina as my home. I called my grandfather yesterday, and he’s so excited, telling everyone he knows to get to Greenville and come see the show.”  

You come see the show, too. Get your seats now for SUFFS, playing in Peace Concert Hall Feb. 24-March 1.