SIX is a modern iteration of the historical event of the famous six wives of 14th-century monarch Henry XIII. Just reading that sentence can be a bit of a struggle, but you heard it right, the story of the six tragic wives is something you’re gonna be hooked on fabulously. As the scandalous story is one for the ages and the pages it’s about to take center stage, with a dance and song number to boot! The play is a pop rendition of the famous women and the stories that come along with them. Get ready to be bewildered because if the unlikely group can only be more unlikely as their end, they’ll perform their hearts out to the song their tale wants to sing.
Six – The Musical Tickets:
“Six is a joyous celebration of sisterhood. It’s the kind of show that makes you want to be a teenager again.” – The Guardian
“SIX isn’t a philosophically incoherent jumble; it’s a rollicking, reverberant blast from the past.” – New York Times
SIX has reached greater heights for musical-loving womanhood and its humorous satirical take on history. But without the help of two talented writers who penned the idea to life, history will become history rather than an all-time hit. The musical comedy is written and composed by the minds of Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. It has been in the works for quite some time, with several years under its fruition. The musical debuted on West End in 2017, greeted with loud cheers and a well-received review at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It was scheduled to transfer to Broadway in March of 2020 but, because of lockdown, it was postponed a year later. It officially opened in October 2021 and was the first live Broadway show after the pandemic.
Lucy Moss, the British writer, director, and composer, became the youngest-ever female director of a Broadway musical at 26. Toby Marlow, the co-composer and writer of the piece once stepped into the role of Catherine Parr in 2019, for two sold-out performances at London’s Arts Theatre when a cast-wide illness struck and the show required a sixth performer. In 2022, Marlow became the first openly nonbinary composer and lyricist to win a Tony Award, sharing the Tony Award for Best Original Score for Six with Moss.
Six had its first professional production at the Arts Theatre in London’s West End, for six Monday night performances beginning on December 18, 2017. The cast included Renée Lamb as Catherine of Aragon, Christina Modestou as Anne Boleyn, Natalie Paris as Jane Seymour, Genesis Lynea as Anna of Cleves, Aimie Atkinson as Katherine Howard, and Izuka Hoyle as Catherine Parr.
For its West End run, SIX was voted “New Musical of the Decade” by readers of WhatsOnStage and received five Olivier Award nominations. SIX has won 23 awards in the 2021-2022 Broadway season, including the Outer Critics Circle Award for “Best Musical.” Their Broadway album debuted at Number 1 on the Billboard Cast Album charts and surpassed six million streams in its first month. Nominated for a Tony Award for “Best Direction of a Musical” with Jamie Armitage, Moss alongside Marlow claimed awards for the century-old story but present-day performance dedicated to this generation.
The six wives had each corresponding pop star of this generation as inspiration. Moss and Marlow, along with watching documentaries and reading historical books, watched and researched Beyoncé’s 2011 concert. They learned from the performance how to properly execute the correct amount of power and music. Critics reviewed how the songs are not only a history lesson but could become an 80’s pop hit and a head-bopping radio favorite.
“With all the jukebox musicals around at the moment, Six is proof that we can still deliver great musical scores without borrowing from history’s best Top 40 tracks. ” – Time Out
The musical goes back 500 years further, as the wives of Henry VIII take the floor. Their marriages were bloody, messy, church-reforming, and pored over by gossipy historians. Don’t mistake a tragic tale for an absence of style and empowerment because the six ladies have got something to say after several centuries. The story starts with an introduction performed by each wife, the introduction comes with a spunk of pop, grace, and a modern beat. The premise is narrated by the six explaining that whoever wins will become the leader of their girl pop group. They must sing and foretell their common experience as the wife of Henry VIII, and whoever claims the most tragic and worst end of them all will emerge victorious.
Catherine of Aragon, whose music was inspired by Beyonce’s Lemonade, tells her story of delivering multiple unsuccessful births and resisting the King’s want to divorce her. Anne Boleyn, modeled amongst artists such as Avril Lavigne and Miley Cyrus, makes fun of Catherine and sings about the King’s infidelity, to which she fiercely retaliates. This led to her punishment of beheading. Jane Seymour gives off Adele and Celine Dion aura, singing ballads. She details her loyal love for the King and her luck in having his son. Her hopes for a perfect family were destroyed by her untimely death during childbirth.
As the Queens continue to fight over who is the true winner, Catherine Parr questions the point of the competition, which defines them by their connection to Henry rather than as individuals. After a defining and powerful performance by Catherine Parr, recalling her engagement with Henry VIII and how she had to give up her love for Sir Thomas Seymour, the Queen listened. They realized they had been robbed of their individualities and became simply wives for the monarch. They use their remaining moments onstage to rewrite their stories, singing together as a group rather than as solo artists, and writing their own “happily ever afters.”
The masterpiece has been to places and became a worldwide sensation breaking boundaries of theatre and adding to the magic of modern retelling of historical events. This year they’ll be at the Buell Theatre to perform a 500-year-old historical heartbreak. Don’t miss out on the laughs and the deaths and mark those calendars for the divorced, beheaded, and survived! Get your tickets now!