Suffs’ Jenn Colella on Juggling Broadway and Motherhood

It’s been a big year for Tony Award nominee Jenn Colella. On February 14, the actress welcomed a new baby girl, Morrison Caroline Colella. Five days later, she began rehearsals for the musical Suffs, in which she plays old-guard suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt. “I have to give credit to my wife, Mo Mullen,” Colella told Tamsen Fadal on The Broadway Show. “We realized that these two things were happening at the same time, that I was giving birth to a Broadway show that I’ve been working on for seven years and to our child at the same time.”

"It's been beautiful and challenging to do both," she added. "But being her mom has definitely put things in perspective. There's nothing more important."

In a wide-ranging conversation, Colella talked about playing complex women on stage, producer Hillary Clinton's deep connection to the show and the resonance of Shaina Taub’s unapologetically partisan musical in this political moment. “It's interesting to be in a show that—it's a musical, but still is very much political. Even if we try to stay bipartisan, it's not. It's partisan. It's women's suffrage, and we are making a statement.”