The cast of SIX, now playing at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul, MN. Photo by Brett Beiner.

From all the hype, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Broadway-bound SIX is the second coming of, well, Hamilton. It is not – the two are apples and onions apart, one being a themed concert experience and the other being a book musical. What the two mainly have in common are nontraditional casting and a novelty of sound compared to the standard Broadway milieu, and that is where most productive comparisons end.

Aurally, SIX (now playing at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts) sounds like what you’d get if the Spice Girls saw Hamilton, got inspired, went to Eurovision, and then wrote a themed concept album about girl power and the wives of Henry VIII of England. The resulting score has a bouncy, bubblegum pop feel, and co-creators Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s have laced the show with catchy hooks, choruses, and innuendos. And, just like a pop concert, Tuesday’s performance was also filled with fans screaming, singing along, and cheering favorite songs.

That SIX is going to Broadway was foreordained; a more interesting question is whether or not it actually empowers its characters. For all that the show is musically interesting, there’s not a lot of actually getting to know the six queens when they’re mostly granted some one-liners, a monologue, and a song each. (The runtime is only 75 minutes.) If you view this as a concert, that’s not bad; if you view it as a musical, that’s rather thin. Check your expectations at the door and you will have a better time of it, because the show is a lot of fun to experience in the moment.

One aspect that will hopefully be addressed in the Broadway transfer is the surplus of high-powered LED lights that suddenly and squarely blast the audience in the eye. This much-used effect was both headache-inducing and bonafide painful, and its use without the normal programming safeguards was a major oversight by lighting designer Tim Deiling.

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.

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SIX runs through December 22 at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul, MN.

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Basil Considine

Basil Considine was the Editor of the Twin Cities Arts Reader from 2018-2022. He served as Performing Arts Editor and Senior Classical Music and Drama Critic for the Arts Reader's first five years, before succeeding Hanne Appelbaum. He was previously the Resident Classical Music and Drama Critic at the Twin Cities Daily Planet and remains an occasional contributing writer for The Boston Musical Intelligencer and The Chattanoogan. He holds a PhD in Music and Drama from Boston University, an MTS in Sacred Music from the BU School of Theology, and a BA in Music and Theatre from the University of San Diego.

Basil was named one of Musical America's 30 Professionals of the Year in 2017. He was previously the Regional Governor for the National Opera Association's North Central Region and the 2021-2022 U.S. Fulbright Faculty Scholar to Madagascar.

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