The Ordway Center For the Performing Arts is better venue for seeing Broadway shows than The Orpheum in Minneapolis. The acoustics are better, the Seats are more comfortable and have more leg room. But for reasons besides enjoyment and comfort of the audience, most of the big Broadway tours go to the Orpheum. Six is taking a different route, usually the shows play on Broadway and then a touring company is mounted and four times out of five, that tour goes to the Orpheum. For the first time in the Ordway’s 34 year history a show, Six, is going from the Ordway to Broadway. So not only is Six a show about History it is a show that is making history. I urge everyone to take advantage of this Phenomenal show in the comfort of the Ordway, and be a part of history.
Six refers to the six wives of Henry VIII. The six wives tell their stories in song as a singing competition. The audience will be the judge of who had the worst time being married to Henry. It’s essentially a pop concert filled with history and the humor and joy you expect from a fun musical. The show runs about 85 minutes with no intermission. But what it lacks in intermission it makes up for in kick ass music! Each of the queens songs were modeled on a couple of different pop singers the likes of Beyonce, Avril Lavigne, Adele, Nicki Minaj, Britney Spears and Alicia Keys among them. The costumes also take their cue from the vocal inspirations. That said the songs are all original and great, any of them could be on the pop charts. Besides being great musically, they are also filled with clever writing. From the chorus of the final song “Six” where it counts up to six but uses different meanings for the numbers and other plays on words like “Too Many Years Lost in HIStory”. The entire show is filled with top notch music and lyrics by the cocreators Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss.
The set is simple, basically a set of steps in the background, places for the band members and a background framework that lights up in different ways. Simple, but very effective. In a scene where they are describing how Henry is picking his next wife it’s like he is using a life sized tinder app, swiping left to reject, the performer goes to the left and the frame she is in front of goes red. In another scene those boxes are lit to represent church windows with a cross lighting up in the center. There are lights and metallic confetti, it feels like a Pop concert, but one filled with history and all number one songs. I’ve been listening to the music for awhile now and every single song has earned a place in my heart. The cast are the Six queens, we had two understudies performing at the show I saw and they were great, so don’t worry about it if a performer is understudied, you are still getting a great show. The cast is brilliant, what can you say, when they are all so good, singling one out seems like a slight on the others. So here are all six performers I saw and their roles: Nicole Kyoung -Mi as Anna of Cleves, Mallory Maedke as Jane Seymour, Adrianna Hicks as Catherine of Aragon, Andrea Macasaet as Anne Boleyn, Samantha Pauly as Katherine Howard, and Anna Uzele as Catherine Parr. They each create a unique character which shines a light on these individual women who have been relegated to the six wives of Henry VIII. There are 4 band members as well on stage and they as well are all female, and they sound like a super tight pop group, this is just a stellar group of songs.
Besides providing us with great entertainment the show also draws attention through our modern eyes to the inequality that women lived under in those days. It attempts to reclaim these women not as a collective group but as the individuals they were. Reminding us that it’s demeaning and dismissive to reference them simply as a group. They were real people, they were more than just wife 1,2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. It points out that when we reference them in that way we are complicit in reinforcing the attitude of the patriarchal society that men mattered, and women’s value was in relationship to men. Unfortunately this is not a completely obsolete view even in 2019. Like Hamilton, Six uses our modern perspective and music to illuminate the past, making it fresh and relevant again. This is a highlight of the 2019 theater scene in the Twin Cities. I expect it will take Broadway by storm in 2020. I urge you to take advantage of this rare opportunity to see Six now, before it even makes it to Broadway. Aside from anyone who loves musical theater, this is a great show to take daughters too, it is very empowering and may educate them on people they have not been exposed to yet.
Six plays through Dec 22nd for more information and to purchase tickets visit https://ordway.org/.
The Stages of MN 