Review Roundup: Critics Sound Off On The Twin Cities Run Of Broadway-Bound SIX

Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. From Tudor Queens to Pop Princesses, the SIX wives of Henry VIII take the mic to reclaim their identities out of the shadow of their infamous spouse-remixing five hundred years of historical heartbreak into an exuberant celebration of 21st century girl power. The female cast is backed by an all-female band, the "Ladies in Waiting." Songs from the studio album are streamed on average 400,000 times per day, making it the second highest streaming cast recording in the world.

SIX is co-directed by Lucy Moss and Jamie Armitage, featuring choreography by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille. The design team includes Emma Bailey (Set Design), Gabriella Slade (Costume Design), Paul Gatehouse (Sound Design) and Tim Deiling (Lighting Design). The score features orchestrations by Tom Curran with music supervision and vocal arrangements by Joe Beighton.

Photo Credit: Brett Beiner

Let's see what the critics had to say about the run of the show at the Ordway in St. Paul!

Rohan Preston, Star Tribune: Like a good concert, "Six" has room for spontaneity. On Tuesday, the moment of the evening happened when Pauly's Katherine Howard began to dither before her number, saying she doesn't know what to do. "Just sing!" a kid in the audience yelled out, offering good advice for a show that's all about giving these shiny queens their voices back.

Dominic P. Papatola, Twin Cities: Is it padded? Indeed it is. Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, the show's barely-out-of-college composers, had to augment the six royal solos with three more filler songs and a mega-mix encore to get the show to crack the 75-minute mark. But it's also cheeky, sharp-eyed, selfie-taking, left-swiping fun that elicits the kinds of whoops and squeals and screams of delight you generally don't hear in a musical theater setting. The iron-lunged performers (Adrianna Hicks, Andrea Macasaet, Nicole Kyoung-Mi Lambert, Mallory Maedke, Samantha Pully and Anna Uzele at Tuesday night's performance) are clearly having a great time enjoying their sisterhood.

Basil Considine, Twin Cities Arts: Should you see SIX? If you'd like to see a hot musical concert production that mashes up pop diva styles with a little bit of British history, it's easy to recommend. The soundtrack is quite the hit, the dancing and onstage repartee are fun to watch, and you still have time left in your evening to sneak in dessert or a walk through Rice Park. Who knows - you might be inspired to crack open a book and become better-acquainted with the real-life Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard, or Catherine Parr.:

Jay Gabler, City Pages: While it's hard to escape the sense that this material must play even better in Britain, the queens definitely know where they are-very specifically so. Henry VIII isn't the only big name that gets shoved offstage in this staging, which features constant shout-outs to St. Paul and not a single solitary mention of Minneapolis. To quote the real-life Anne Boleyn, "Let them grumble; that is how it's going to be."

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