“It’s a really intelligent way to explore their experiences, or, I should say, one part of their experiences, because their downfalls are not all of their lives.”īelow, find a song-by-song (or wife-by-wife) breakdown of the true history behind Six. “ is this kind of ridiculous satire of ,” she says. Historian Jessica Storoschuk, who has written about Six extensively on her blog, has found that in school and popular culture, the queens are usually only talked about in terms of their fate. (During these numbers, the other wives act as both backup singers and dancers beyond the six solos, the 80-minute show features three group numbers.) Ultimately, the women decide to form a girl band instead, leaving the king out of the narrative and imagining an alternate future featuring far happier ends for all of them. Six frames its story as a makeshift talent competition in which the wife whose life was most tragic “wins.” The rules are simple: “The queen who was dealt the worst hand … shall be the one to lead the band.” Each wife sings a solo summarizing her experiences, engaging in acerbic banter in between verses. Instead, “It’s, ‘What if Anne Boleyn was like this?’ And how does that change the way you think about this very famous historical figure?” Still, Marlow explains, the show’s goal isn’t to convey history with 100 percent accuracy. The musical’s layered repartee deftly balances references to Tudor culture with nods to modern music, like the line “Stick around and you’ll suddenly see more” (a play on “ Suddenly, Seymour” from Little Shop of Horrors). Marlow and Moss drew on a range of sources when writing Six, including Antonia Fraser’s The Wives of Henry VIII and documentaries hosted by historian Lucy Worsley. “With all of them,” says Moss, “there was so much of interest beyond the moment they got married or divorced.”
Though Six prominently features the rhyme historically used to describe the fates of the Tudor king’s queens-“divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”-the musical moves beyond these reductive one-word summaries to present its subjects as fully realized individuals. The Tudor period, with its “soap opera”-esque political machinations and rich cast of female characters, offered the duo the opportunity to explore contemporary issues like feminism through a historical lens. “It came from us having an interest in the representation of women in musical theater, having women on stage doing funny and hilarious things.” Moss, 27, adds, “What we were interested in doing was reframing the way that women have been perceived in history and telling their side of the story.” Six “didn’t come out of a love of the Tudor period particularly,” says Marlow, 26. L to R: Abby Mueller (Jane Seymour), Samantha Pauly (Katherine Howard), Adrianna Hicks (Catherine of Aragon), Andrea Macasaet (Anne Boleyn), BrittneyMack (Anna of Cleves) and Anna Uzele (Catherine Parr) (A cast soundtrack released in September 2018 similarly became an unqualified success.) Now, after an extended delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the musical is finally making its Broadway debut. The product of the pair’s collaboration- Six, a modern reimagining of the lives of Henry VIII’s six wives-premiered on London’s West End in 2019 to much acclaim. Then an undergraduate student tasked with writing an original show for the upcoming Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Marlow brought his idea to classmate Lucy Moss, who agreed to help bring his vision of a Tudor-themed pop musical to life.
#THE BALLAD OF JANE ORCHESTRA SERIES#
Participating in a discussion on William Blake, he found his mind wandering and began scribbling a series of unrelated notes: “Henry VIII’s wives → like a girl group … Need Lucy!!” Inspiration struck Toby Marlow during a comparative poetry class at Cambridge University in fall 2016.
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