march2–15, 2020 | newyork 73Anne
of Cleves
married 1540
Played by BrittneyMackIRL: Next up: a strategic political marriage
to one of the sisters of Germany’s Duke
of Cleves. Most famous for being rejected
by Henry for not looking as good as her
portrait (or so he claimed). Six monthsin,
she accepted an annulment and a generous
settlement. The show calls her Anna ofCleves.AS A DIVA: The “Feeling Myself ” vibe
ofNicki Minaj and Beyoncé, plus the
wealth parody of Iggy Azalea and Charli
XCX’s “Fancy” and Lorde’s “Royals.”HER SONG: “Get Down,” in which Marlow
andMoss reframe contemporary odesto
opulence with brags about “pheasantinstead
of Grey Goose,” as Moss says. “Whenyou
hear ‘Get Down,’ immediately you wanttoget
into this ‘urban’ approach to her,” Macksays.
“But as a black woman portraying thisrole,I
don’t want to do that.” Mack cites the poiseof
Jane d Ti n
for h nce
wonderful that” in every production of
character is not always played by a blacSTANDOUT LYRIC: “Okay, ladies,
let’s get in Reformation.”Catherine
Howard
married 1540–42
Played by SamanthaPaulyIRL: Henry became smitten by another
of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. They
lasted a year or so, but then he had her
beheaded for treason on the basis of
adultery. Moss and Marlow conceivedof
her as the survivor of sexual abuse. The
show spells her first name with a K.AS A DIVA: An amalgam of “young pop
stars sexualized early on in their careers,”
asMarlow puts it, like Miley Cyrus,
Britney Spears, and Ariana Grande (the
inspiration for the queen’s ponytail).HER SONG: “All You Wanna Do,” in which
Moss and Marlow use the earwormy hooksof
a repeated chorus to emphasize the repetitive
nature of the abuse she experienced.THE TONE: The dark core of the bubblegum-
packaged song isn’t necessarily apparentout
s playing herhasto
he music andlyrics.
“I have to stay in this pop-show mode,”Pauly
says. “But I also have to make it clearthings
aren’t what they seem. It isn’t until theend
of the song that people are like, ‘I’ve been
laughing the whole time; maybe I shouldn’t.’”Catherine
Parr
married 1543–47
Played by Anna UzeleIRL: The one who outlived him, marrying
Henry after having several relationships of
her own (she was a widow). Catherine pushed
for women to be able to study the Bible
unsupervised by men (a big step for the time).
She got his daughters Mary and Elizabeth
restored to the order of succession and acted
as regent when Henry went to war with
France. She survived him by a year and a half.ASA DIVA: Emeli Sandé, Alicia Keys,
and“the side of Beyoncé when she’s
talking to the audience as if she’s their
best friend,” according to Moss.HER SONG: “I Don’t Need Your Love,” a jazzy
solo that starts as a letter to the man Catherine
had to abandon for Henry and morphs into
a group number directed at the king.THE TONE: In a show of tricky tonal
shifts, Six’s transition from the devastation
at the end of “All You Wanna Do” to the
rousing, girl-power spirit of “I Don’t
Need Your Love” might be the hardest
to pull off without seeming glib.what if, after all the divorces (or, technically, annulments), beheadings, and deaths, Henry VIII’s six wives
got together in a kind of 16th-century version of VH1’s Divas Afterlife? That’s the concept behind Six, a musical that imagines
all the wives in a singing competition—with six solos, three group numbers, and, of course, one megamix—about who had the
worst go of it. Six was created in 2017 by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss when they were Cambridge undergrads. They were always wor-
ried about the possibility that Six could be “terrible” given its audacious concept. But, says Marlow, “Lucy was like, ‘Maybe a way of not
making it terrible is to give the show a sense of humor.’ ” And it’s definitely not terrible: It has already traveled to London’s West End,
Chicago, Boston, Edmonton, Sydney, and several cruise ships. Now, it’s finally on Broadway. How exactly did history and diva worship
coalesce into one remarkable show? Marlow, Moss, and the American cast walked us through the creation of the six queens of Six.
Wife Wife Wife