From Hollywood to Broadway, feminism has cultural moment

The play ‘Liberation’ joins the bicoastal stage-and-screen zeitgeist. Its clear catalyst? L.A.’s own Ms. magazine

- JENNIFER WEISS-WOLF GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

DIMITRIOS KAMBOURIS Getty Images for Universal Pictures CYNTHIA ERIVO, left, and Ariana Grande join a string of productions lifting up women.

AMONG THE longstanding Los Angeles versus New York City rivalries — Dodgers or Yankees, freeway or subway — the great divide between Hollywood and Broadway has fueled many a tabloid tussle.

A recent slew of screen and stage synergies may help flip that script, particularly when it comes to telling the stories of girls and women and the fight for gender equality.

No doubt, it is an eclectic mix. Last week marked the opening of “Suffs” at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, kicking off its inaugural national tour. The two-time Tony award-winning musical about the women’s suffrage movement takes to the stage as the Trump administration questions publicly the good sense of the 19th Amendment, which included women in the right to vote.

Actor Jennifer Lawrence recently announced a new film project featuring the return of the diva of all divas, Miss Piggy, a character Lawrence frames as “a feminist icon”; writing the script will be 2025 Tony winner Cole Escola, the first out nonbinary person to win best actor in a play, an accolade earned for their role in “Oh, Mary” (the funniest, campiest, gayest play Broadway has seen in years).

Earlier this year, the Broadway smash “John Proctor Is the Villain” — a whip-smart reflection on what it means to be a young woman in Trump’s America — featured Sadie Sink, one of the breakout teen stars of the wildly popular Netflix series “Stranger Things,” which is about to begin its long-awaited series finale.