Women of Broadway: The Matriarchs Who Remember
- Waymon Hudson
- 12 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Every great musical has a mother-figure... or someone who’s had to become one.
But Broadway’s matriarchs are never just caretakers.
They’re historians, survivors, and witnesses.
And they often remember what the world tried to forget.
And today’s stages continue that legacy — from the six queens rewriting history in Six to Jenna reclaiming her voice in Waitress, from Kimberly Akimbo’s fragile humor to Persephone’s fire in Hadestown.
The women of Broadway have always turned survival into song — and truth into melody.
Think of Caroline in Caroline, or Change — folding laundry and holding back generations of pain.
Or Celie in The Color Purple — reclaiming her voice and her worth.
Or even the unnamed ancestors in Once on This Island, who carry memory through myth.
Broadway’s women of color especially have always carried both the burden and the brilliance of remembrance.
But for queer Black women, that story has rarely been sung at all.
That silence is exactly what Speakeasy: A New Musical seeks to challenge.
Like so many women of Broadway before her, Miss Addie refuses to stay quiet. Her story bridges eras — the hidden lives of the Harlem Renaissance and the unapologetic truth-telling of modern musical heroines. She carries the same fire as Celie, the same knowing humor as Caroline, the same rebellious spark that still lights up today’s Broadway stage.
Women of Broadway: Speakeasy's Miss Addie Breaks the Silence
In Speakeasy: A New Musical, one of our leads characters, Miss Addie, begins as the overly-pious Delaney family’s maid — a seemingly peripheral role.
She’s the quiet wisdom, the grounding force, the safe place for Jules, the family's daughter who questions her place in this world, to land.
But underneath that gentleness is rebellion.
She’s the one who slips Jules books by Zora Neal Hurston, who challenges the household’s cold piety, who plants the seed of freedom long before Jules ever meets Rome, her soon-to-be love.
And in the “Stolen Glances (Reprise)” scene, we finally understand why. After Jules sneaks out to the Velvet Boot, the underground drag speakeasy where she meets Rome for the first time, she asks Addie if she's ever fallen in love like this- ever been hit with a love so immediate and pure that it shifts your entire world. And Addie answers with her truth:
“Once. When I was about your age. Her name was Lena — like the storm she was. Cost me a family, a home, a name… but not my truth. She gave me that."
It’s a line that rewrites history.
Because Miss Addie’s story, a Black woman who loved another woman during the early 1900s, is rarely allowed to exist on stage at all.
She confesses her lost love not with tragedy, but with reverence.
And she uses the same melody, "Stolen Glances," that underscored Jules and Rome’s first kiss in the previous scene.
In that moment, the show does something radical:
It places Addie’s story and her love on equal footing with theirs as she sings:
"These stolen glances… Through a windowpane, whispered name in summer rain. I wore my best, we laughed too loud, The world dropped away, even in a crowd...."
The Rebellion of Remembering
Miss Addie’s song isn’t nostalgia — it’s defiance.
Every note is a refusal to let her love be erased, a reminder that memory itself can be an act of revolution.
Her love isn’t a footnote. It’s foundational.
It takes center stage.
“Maybe Yours Won’t Fade or Dim”
When Miss Addie sings:
“These stolen glances…Maybe yours won’t fade or dim. Maybe you’ll run, you’ll reach him. And even if the whole world ends, It’s worth it… once… to not pretend.”
She isn’t just blessing Jules’s love.
She’s reclaiming her own.
She’s saying: Don’t hide the way I did.
Run. Love. Risk it all.
Even if it breaks you.
It’s the same defiant spirit that’s threaded through Broadway’s quietest revolutions — from Celie’s “I’m Here” to Caroline’s “Lot’s Wife”.
These aren’t just belted showstoppers.
They’re truth-telling.
And for Miss Addie, that truth comes softly — in amber light, at a kitchen table — where the world’s expectations can’t touch her.
From Matriarch to Revolutionary
What makes Addie extraordinary is that she breaks the mold of the Broadway “strong Black woman” trope.
She isn’t stoic.
She’s not a sermon.
She’s tender, mischievous, flawed, and alive.
Her quiet rebellion has always been there — in the way she protects Jules from her mother’s judgment, in the way she side-eyes the hypocrisy of the Delaneys’ religion, in the way she still hums the melody of a love she was told to forget.
Her reprise is an act of remembrance.
But it’s also an act of resistance.
Because when Miss Addie tells Jules her truth, she isn’t just coming out — she’s passing the torch.
She’s saying: Be brave enough to live what I couldn’t.
And that’s the power of Broadway’s matriarchs.
They remember so the next generation can be free.
We'll be exploring more of Addie's character arc and her journey from rebellious matriarch for Jules to center stage as the heart of Speakeasy: A New Musical in our next blogs and videos, so be sure to subscribe and follow her journey.
🎧 Listen Now
🎧 “Stolen Glances (Reprise)”: Full lyric video now live!
📺 Watch all the “Behind Broadway” video episodes: Step into the spotlight behind the spotlight. Behind Broadway is your backstage pass to how musicals really work, from iconic song structures to emotional arcs, queer storytelling, and the hidden craft that makes theater magic. Whether you’re a theater kid, a casual fan, or a future Tony winner in disguise, welcome to the show behind the show.
Read more Behind Broadway Breakdowns:
Learn about classic broadway song structure and Jules' character arc in Speakeasy:
Read the arc on Broadway's Soft Boys, Masculinity, and Rome's arc in Speakeasy:
Check out Merc's arc in Speakeasy and look at Queer Broadway, longing, and love,:
And follow Addie's journey as we explore rebellion, freedom, and breaking the mold:
This Is Speakeasy
Speakeasy is a bold, queer, jazz-drenched musical set in a 1920s underground nightclub where rebellion is a love language and music is a lifeline.
Created by Waymon Hudson (that’s me!), it’s a reimagined Romeo & Juliet with drag queens, bootleggers, and big Broadway heart.
Come inside.
The music’s playing.
And your truth belongs here.
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