Trivia / Six: The Musical

• Acting for Two: During "Haus of Holbein", the actresses who play Catherine Parr and Katherine Howard briefly portray Christina of Denmark and Amalia of Cleves, respectively.
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • Anne Boleyn's signature space buns first came about when original West End cast member Millie O'Connell decided to wear them one day during West End Live 2018. Six's directors liked the look so much that it became the default Boleyn hairstyle.
  • Performers are able to give input regarding hairstyles and wigs to suit their tastes and hair texture. They are also expected to do their own makeup and are given a considerable amount of freedom, which especially leads to varying eye looks.
• Actor-Shared Background: So far, Spanish queen Catherine of Aragon has been portrayed by two Spaniards: Collette Guitart of the West End cast and Melinda Porto of the third Bliss cast.
• Actor Swap: An expected occurrence in theatre, actresses that drop out mid-show can be covered by a standby. The most extraneous example came on 12 June 2021, where Catherine Parr actress Danielle Steers had to step out due to illness. Hana Stewart, an alternate who was playing Jane Seymour that show, switched her track to Catherine Parr while standby Liv Alexander made her West End debut filling in the remaining role gap.
• Approval of God: Six's creators, cast members, and official social media accounts are known to repost and comment on fan art.
• Author's Saving Throw: When the West End production's transfer to the Vaudeville Theatre was announced, the post received lots of backlash because the Vaudeville does not have accessible bathrooms, a stairlift usable for motorised wheelchairs, handrails or even an access ramp (as opposed to Six's previous venue, the Lyric Theatre, which presumably had most of these things). Fans found it doubly disheartening because Six has historically been about uplifting all — including disabled people. In response, Six's producers made a post asking people to engage in conversation with them in order to figure things out. This was also not received well. They have since installed a sufficient stair climber, announced wheelchair spaces with companion seats, offered different access shows for people with various disabilities, and reached out to a disability-led arts organisation, which has seemingly pleased people given that there isn't much talk currently.
• Bonus Material: The original Cambridge student production cast filmed a short mockumentary called "Chillin' With the Tudors", portraying the Six queens living in the same flat together. Hilarity ensues.
• Breakthrough Hit: After Six, Lucy Moss went on to direct Ratatouille the Musical and the 2022 London revival of Legally Blonde.
• Concert Kiss: At the end of a UK Tour show on 3 July 2021, the then-fiance of Natalie Pilkington (who was on at the time as Anne Boleyn) came on stage to propose to her, which garnered a Squee reaction from the audience and cast. After accepting the proposal, the two shared a kiss on stage and danced off with celebratory music.
• Costume Evolution: Each of the queens' costumes have gone through many changes throughout Six's history — even the alternate costumes. Compare the original 2017 Student production's costumes with those of the 2018 Arts Theatre, 2018 UK Tour, 2019 West End, and 2022 Hampton Court Palace productions.
• Dawson Casting: Katherine Howard was (tragically) only sixteen or seventeen when she married Henry, and nineteen when she died. The original West End cast has thirty-year-old Aimie Atkinson in the role. Justified considering Aimie looks considerably young for her age.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Some actresses used to dye their hair to achieve the look associated with their respective queen, notably Howard's black and pink ombre. In later and recent productions, wigs and extensions are always used. Aimie Atkinson (West End Howard) and Sam Pauly (Broadway Howard) went into this on Aimie's Thespies show, talking about how the constant dyeing and re-dyeing to keep the pink tips bright and unfaded fried their hair.
• 11th-Hour Ranger:
  • In notable shows such as show closings and cast changes, alternates and swings (sometimes in costume, sometimes not) make their appearances on stage during the "Megasix", and may even sing alongside the queens.
  • Broadway dance captain and swing Mallory Maedke got a special on-air callout at the 2022 Tony Awards for stepping in as Jane Seymour just 12 hours before the live performance of "Ex-Wives/Six".
• Fake Nationality:
  • While the rest of the queens have been portrayed by English (and in the case of Catherine of Aragon, Spanish) women at some point, Anna of Cleves has never been played by anyone German.
  • Unlike previous cruise casts, the third Breakaway, third Bliss, and fourth Breakaway casts were completely comprised of American performers.
  • Hana Stewart and Natalie Paris, both British women, are currently the only queens on a US production to avert this.
• Fan Community Nickname: Six: the Musical fans are collectively known as "The Queendom". Confusingly, "joining the Queendom" can also mean for someone to be involved in an actual production of the show.
• Fandom Life Cycle: As of October 2023, Six: the Musical seems to have settled around Stage 4, with the musical having received widespread recognition through its appearances on Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, multiple day and night shows, and The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Celebration — not to mention its Tony Award wins.
• Fan Translation: Numerous fan translations of Six songs exist on YouTube, the most prominent being Six: El Musical en Español Latino and Studio Accantus' Polish cover series.
• Filmed Stage Production: A pro-shot was filmed in mid-2022 featuring the original West End cast, but its release date is yet to be confirmed.
• Friendship on the Set:
  • Every Six cast is its own friend group, and it's not uncommon for queens across different casts to be friends with each other as well.
  • The original West End cast formed a girl group called "SVN" (pronounced Seven) because they were all already used to spending time with each other.
• Historical Gender Flip: Casting calls encourages anyone in the trans community who are comfortable with playing women to audition.
  • Catherine Parr was once portrayed by non-binary co-creator Toby Marlow due to cast-wide injury and illness.
  • The Student Production's Anna of Cleves was portrayed by transmasculine non-binary actor Oliver Wickham.
  • On three separate occasions, Maggie and Bessie have been played by men who were brought in last minute and had to learn the entire show in the span of a few hours.
• The Merch: Six sells merchandise from its theatres. Items include handfans, shirts, jackets, plastic crowns, and most notably, pins that resemble the show's costumes.
• Original Cast Precedent: While casting for the queens is colorblind, official productions tend to lean towards keeping Aragon, Cleves, and Parr darker-skinned women of color, while Boleyn, Seymour, and Howard are usually light-skinned^note though not necessarily white — the original Broadway actor for Boleyn is Filipina, for example. The races of their musical inspirations may play a role in this: the former three are inspired by black artists^note Rihanna, Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj, and Alicia Keys respectively while the latter three are inspired by white artists^note Avril Lavigne, Adele, and Britney Spears and Ariana Grande, respectively.
• The Original Darrin: The original 2019 West End cast reprised their roles for a single pro-shot West End show on July 2022.
• The Other Darrin: Happens all the time, as is the nature of theatre.
  • On the West End, alternates and super swings are on so often that it's a rare occurence for someone to see a show with a fully-principal cast. Casual theatregoers who are not invested in the fandom will find it hard to tell if an alternate is on at all due to the fact that they wear principal costumes now.
  • Cleves actress Aiesha Pease only got to play 7 shows before leaving the 2022-23 UK Tour due to personal reasons. After 2 months of alternates and swings covering the role, Jessica Niles (from the first and second Breakaway casts) was cast as a principal replacement. 5 months later, Howard actress Jaina Brock-Patel left the tour as well with Rebbeca Wickes (from the second Bliss cast) taking over 2 months later.
• The Other Marty:
  • Out of the premiere West End cast, only two, Natalie Paris and Aimie Atkinson, were part of the original Arts Theatre cast. The other four — Renée Lamb, Christina Modestou, Genesis Lynea, and Izuka Hoyle — have since moved on to other projects. However, Renée and Genesis have reprised their roles on separate occasions.
  • The Album cast is widely known as Six's "original cast", but in actuality the first Six cast was of the Student production that ran during 2017, consisting of Megan Gilbert, Ashleigh Weir, Holly Musgrave, Oliver Wickham, Annabel Marlow, and Shimali de Silva.
• Produced by Cast Member: Megan Gilbert not only played Catherine of Aragon during the original student production, but also served as its executive producer.
• The Production Curse: A strange phenomenon occurs whenever a performer is cast as "Alternate Catherine of Aragon and Anna of Cleves". It has to be that specific combination; if a performer covers Aragon, Cleves, and also a third other role as a first cover set, then the "curse" will not apply to them. Anyone cast as Alternate Aragon/Cleves has consistently made the least amount of debuts compared to the rest of their cast. This curse was broken by West End alternate Monique Ashe-Palmer.
• Promoted Fanboy: Multiple Six cast members have stated that they were fans of the show before being cast.
• Rarely Performed Song: "All You Wanna Do" and "I Don't Need Your Love" are the two songs that have never been sung by the cast as promotional performances.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Many actresses wear wigs in order to protect their hair. The most notable example is Harriet Watson, who started wearing a ginger wig (her natural hair colour being blonde) midway through the 2019-20 UK Tour because she had issues with hair breakage.
• Role Reprise: Quite a reoccurrence with this show.
  • After having left the show for over a year, West End replacement Vicki Manser reprised her role as Katherine Howard for the 2021-22 UK Tour.
  • Athena Collins from the 2019-20 UK Tour briefly served as a temporary replacement as Catherine Parr on the West End during mid 2021.
  • In 2022, the original 2019 West End cast returned for three shows at Hampton Court Palace, as well as one show at the Vaudeville Theatre in order to film a pro-shot of the musical.
  • Following the end of the North American Aragon Tour, all six principal cast members reprised their respective roles as the 2023-24 cast of the Broadway production. This includes Jasmine Forsberg (Seymour) and Didi Romero (Howard), who both left the Aragon Tour prematurely. Prior to this, Khalia Wilcoxon (Aragon) reprised her role for one month in the Broadway production while Hailee Kaleem Wright was on medical leave.
  • Natalie Paris, who originated the role of Jane Seymour in the studio cast recording and original West End run, replaced Jasmine Forsberg in the role from the opening of the Los Angeles run of the Aragon Tour alongside Courtney Mack as Katherine Howard, having previously understudied the role in the original Broadway production.
• Romance on the Set:
  • Genesis Lynea (original Anna of Cleves) and Aimie Atkinson (original Katherine Howard) used to date during (and before) their time together on Six.
  • Harriet Watson (an alternate and later super swing) dated Gem Johnstone (a sound engineer) during the UK Tour.
  • Vicki Manser (Howard) has been dating Frankie South (Maggie) since their time together on the UK Tour.
  • Roxanne Couch (Parr) is currently dating Alexander Capon, who works as LX2 on the West End.
  • Cassandra Lee (an alternate) dated Vanessa Domonique (Bessie) during the UK Tour, and are currently married.
  • Chlöe Hart (Aragon) and Ellie Haffenden (a stage manager) dated during the UK Tour.
  • Vidya Makan (Parr) and Heidi Maguire (Maria) have been dating since their time on the Australian/New Zealand Tour.
• Schedule Slip: COVID-19 caused the cancellation of many opening shows, including those of the West End, Broadway, Bliss/Breakaway 2.0, and UK Tour productions of Six.
• Sixth Ranger:
  • During the St. Paul run of the original North American Tour (the last run of the production), Shantel Cribbs was brought in for that run and that run only as an understudy. She never got to perform, only appearing onstage at the end of the last Megasix of the tour.
  • At the tail-end of the first Bliss cruise production, rehearsal swing Lori McLare was brought on as an onboard understudy for Katherine Howard due to an infamous multi-production domino effect.
  • Nearing the end of the 2021-22 UK Tour, Cherelle Jay (former West End alternate) joined as a standby in order to cover for Jennifer Caldwell and Natalie Pilkington, who were busy rehearsing with the next UK Tour cast. She ended up playing four different roles in the span of two weeks.
  • Mid-way through the second Australian/New Zealand Tour, the production decided to cast its assistant director and resident choreographer Cristina D'Agostino as an emergency swing. A few months after that, Madeline Fansler from the third Breakaway cast was briefly brought in as a swing and then came back for the production's final tour stop.
  • Leesa Tulley and Harriet Caplan-Dean, previously an alternate and a super swing respectively from the 2022-23 UK Tour, hopped onto the 2022-23 West End production for its last couple of months to help with covers.
• Three Plus Two: The original West End cast originally had three alternates. After multiple emergency covers, it became clear that the cast needed more people. So, another alternate and a prematurely-debuting super swing were brought in, bringing the number of effective swings to five. By the time the third West End cast change rolled around, Six had learned its lesson — three alternates and two super swings were cast to start with.
• Transatlantic Equivalent: Six is arguably the British equivalent to Hamilton. Both are globally-popular contemporary musicals that portray famous historical figures through a modern lens — the former with girl groups and the latter with hip-hop. Hamilton is the larger show in terms of runtime, production and popularity, though.
• Troubled Production: A constant within Six, apparently.
  • Six's West End production has gone through the most turbulence, being subject to constant emergency returns, premature debuts, COVID cancellations, and cross-cast covers.
  • Adrianna Hicks, Abby Mueller, Brittney Mack and Samantha Pauly had to step out for long periods of time during various parts of the Pre Broadway Tour, causing the production's swings to serve as temporary principals for a majority of 2019.
  • The initial 2020 Broadway Production was one day away from their official opening before COVID-19 caused it to shut down. The production had to open a year later.
  • The second Bliss cruise production only ran for two days before being shut down due to COVID-19.
  • The 2021-22 UK Tour was particularly eventful. the production's principal Anne Boleyn was absent during opening night and a good few days after that, the Southampton tour stop had alternate massives on every show, 16 consecutive shows in Salford were cancelled due to COVID-19, two cast members had to drop out due to them being busy rehearsing with the next UK Tour cast, and the last show of the old cast had to be moved three days forward because the aforementioned next cast came down with COVID.
• Underage Casting: Catherine of Aragon, normally played by women in their early twenties, was fifty when she passed away. Anne Boleyn and Catherine Parr, also played by women in their twenties were in their thirties when they got married to Henry.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Lucy Moss stated in an interview that she had originally wanted to include a romantic subplot between Cleves and Howard, due to their prior history. In case you're unable to view the article, here is a screenshot of the moment.◊
  • Samantha Pauly, the US Howard, took a leave from the show while it was touring in order to play Evita on the West End. While she was in the UK, she was approached to do an emergency cover for the West End cast. It ended up not happening because her work visa only covered her for playing in Evita at one specific theater, not for playing in any other shows.
  • Toby Marlow stated that Hans Holbein was originally going to be a character in the show. He and Moss also toyed with the idea of having a children's chorus (representing the queens' children) during "Heart of Stone".
  • The original second Breakaway production that was supposed to debut in 2020 had an almost completely different cast, but it had to be cancelled due to COVID-19 closures before the cast could be announced. When the production came back in 2021, only Ellie Sharpe and Sadie Hurst made their returns to the show as a swing and rehearsal swing, respectively.
• Word of God: The Queens' inspirations, or "Queenspirations":
  • Aragon: Beyoncé and Shakira
  • Boleyn: Lily Allen and Avril Lavigne
  • Seymour: Adele and Sia
  • Cleves: Rihanna and Nicki Minaj
  • Howard: Ariana Grande and Britney Spears
  • Parr: Alicia Keys and Emeli Sandé
• Working Title: Marlow and Moss went through many names before deciding on "Six", including "6 Exes", "Historemix", "The Tudor Roses", "Little Six", "Sixth Harmony", "Live in Consort", "Sixessors", and "Haus of Holbein".

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