That is quite a reign for an 80-minute musical that began as a project by two Cambridge University students.\n<\/p>\n
Written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, \u201cSix\u201d premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017 and reimagined Henry VIII\u2019s wives as members of a girl group competing over which suffered the most at his hands. It quickly moved beyond its unlikely origins, reaching the West End and international productions and developing an especially strong following among young theatergoers.<\/p>\n
Its journey to Broadway, however, nearly came to a halt. \u201cSix\u201d was in previews in March 2020 and just hours away from its scheduled March 12 opening night when Broadway shut down due to COVID-19.<\/p>\n
![\"women](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1788121712_450_8-26-8_Six_Bway_0028r.jpg\" "\\"\u2018Six\u2019")
SIXPhoto by Joan Marcus<\/p>\n
I had seen \u201cSix\u201d shortly before the shutdown and was not especially taken with it. I thought the production looked cheap and amounted to little more than a handful of catchy pop songs built around a clever historical gimmick. My review was scheduled to run after the March 12 opening, but when Broadway shut down just hours before the performance, the review never ran.<\/p>\n
When I returned a year and a half later, as \u201cSix\u201d was preparing to finally open, something had changed, although I doubt it was the show itself. This time, it clicked. The songs felt sharper, the conceit smarter and the whole thing more infectious. The review that ultimately ran after the long-delayed opening was considerably more enthusiastic. Perhaps I had simply underestimated it the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cSix\u201d finally opened on Oct. 3, 2021, becoming the first new musical to open on Broadway following the shutdown. It went on to become one of the most successful new musicals of the post-pandemic era and achieve global recognition.<\/p>\n
In retrospect, its success is fascinating because \u201cSix\u201d bears little resemblance to a traditional Broadway blockbuster. It has six principal performers, a small band, essentially one set and no intermission, giving it a far leaner physical footprint than a conventional large-scale musical.<\/p>\n
More importantly, it is unusually original. At a time when Broadway increasingly relies on jukebox musicals, Marlow and Moss managed to capture the sound and attitude of contemporary pop without recycling familiar hits. The score takes inspiration from major pop divas while using entirely original songs to tell the queens\u2019 stories.<\/p>\n
![\"women](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2-26-8_Six_Bway_0251r.jpg\" "\\"\u2018Six\u2019")
Six: The MusicalPhoto by Joan Marcus<\/p>\n
Beneath the glitter and girl-group attitude is also a smart examination of history and gender politics. Women traditionally defined by their relationships to a powerful man reclaim their identities and eventually reject the contest over who suffered the most. It is a pop concert, history lesson, feminist reconsideration of the past and Broadway musical all at once.<\/p>\n
Its Broadway and U.K. recordings have accumulated more than 5.5 billion listens, while \u201cSix: Teen Edition\u201d is now available for licensing to U.S. schools and youth groups. French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts, the theater camp I attended growing up, staged it this summer.<\/p>\n
Nor is \u201cSix\u201d disappearing. It continues in the West End and on tour, and a filmed capture featuring the original West End cast was released in U.S. and Canadian theaters on Aug. 14.\n<\/p>\n
Perhaps it will even remain in New York. No transfer has been announced, but \u201cSix\u201d would seem tailor-made for New World Stages. Its compact production could fit naturally into the commercial Off-Broadway complex, where \u201cHeathers,\u201d another youth-oriented musical with a pop score and devoted fan base, has recently become a major success.<\/p>\n
There is also a producing connection: Kevin McCollum, one of the Broadway producers of \u201cSix,\u201d previously produced \u201cAvenue Q,\u201d which transferred to New World Stages in 2009 following its Broadway run and remained there for nearly another decade.<\/p>\n
Whether \u201cSix\u201d follows the same path remains to be seen. But even if its New York run ends on Jan. 3, its Broadway reign has been an extraordinary one.\n<\/p>\n
As \u201cSix\u201d begins with the familiar rhyme: \u201cDivorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.\u201d As for the musical itself, it did more than survive on Broadway. It reigned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every reign must eventually come to an end, even one with six queens. \u201cSix,\u201d the hit pop musical…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1033612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,19607,413698,413699,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,92813,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-1033611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-broadway","tag-henry-viii","tag-lena-horne-theater","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-six-the-musical","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117186351875471402","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1033611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1033612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1033611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1033611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1033611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}