hello everyone! long time, no see for quite sometime! I have so many shows I would love to talk with you guys about, but right now, this is the one I am most passionate about - Six the Musical! I recently took a summer trip to Paris, France and London, England, and I was lucky enough to get to see Six the Musical at the Arts Theatre in London. I knew I wanted to see something only available in the U.K., and my roommate and I were obsessed with the cast recording this past semester at school, then I had a close friend see the Chicago run of Six and told me I absolutely had to see it, and I was officially on a mission to see it. It took me a week of attempting to find rush tickets and absolutely anything available, and I finally found two tickets for the next day on the TodayTix app. Bless up! So, let's get talking about this royal sensation, Six.
Six was written by Cambridge students Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, about the six queens / wives of Henry VIII in a Spice Girls-esque pop girl group. You know, divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived? If you didn't learn that in school, please message me and listen to this show and educate yourself. Like please. Quick history lesson for you:
First wife - Catharine of Aragon, divorced Second wife - Anne Boleyn, beheaded Third wife - Jane Seymour, died Fourth wife - Anna/Anne of Cleves, divorced Fifth wife - Katharine Howard, beheaded Sixth wife - Catharine Parr, survived.
Each queen has a song inspired by a pop queen, and each queen, SLAYS. Each song is challenging in its own way, and the show is a full 75 minutes with no intermission. These queens are dancing and belting for their life for 75 minutes like eight times a week! That is insane! I was so fortunate to see such a wonderful cast, with alternates Courtney Stapleton and Grace Mouat as Catharine of Aragon and Katharine Howard, and newfound queen Collette Guitart as Anne Boleyn (sad I did not get to see Millie O'Connell because I love her, but Collette was lovely all the same!), and original queen Natalie May Paris as Jane Seymour, and Alexia Mcintosh as Anna of Cleves. I was most blown away by Miss Maiya Quansah-Breed, who played Catharine Parr in the show - I genuinely cannot say enough good things about how incredibly smooth her voice is and how pleasing it is to listen to and her performance was simply inspiring!
Of course I loved every queen during the show, and I absolutely love the cleverness of the lyrics and the different perspective of each queen's story. For instance, I had never thought of much of Katharine Howard's life, but her song reveals so much emotional hurt that she had experienced in her life previous to her marriage to Henry VIII, and I now have mad respect for Catharine Parr who lived her own influential life before she even became queen. I had even never thought about how terrible it must have been for Catharine of Aragon to have been married for so long and been promised of a lifetime of queendom, and then suddenly she is thrown aside. It's crazy how different but relatable each queen's story is to life now as a woman, yet these were things they were experience centuries ago.
In the program for the show, Marlow and Moss wrote a manifesto for the show, and one of their goals was to write a show that told a powerful female story without being super serious or super dramatic. Six accomplishes just that. It was funny, emotional, and powerful all wrapped into one! As a young woman, it is so cool to see that in a show and how inspiring women in the 16th century can be to 21st century women.
Basically, I was blown away by this show, and I am SO excited to see it on their just announced Broadway run next year, as well as their premiere in Australia, Boston, on a U.K. tour, and even on a cruise line! Six is extending their reign worldwide, and I could not be happier about it. If you ever have the chance, go see Six the Musical. You will truly not regret it and you will experience a wonderfully talented group of queens telling the story of the queens before them. Slay forever, Six Queens!
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