SIX on Broadway

You know the rhyme you learned in school to remember the six wives of English king Henry VIII. “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.” But is that all? Six is a histo-remix for the ages, where the women reveal the truth behind their relationships and share their lives — not just their deaths — for themselves. Get Six tickets on TodayTix.

Six may be Broadway’s coolest history lesson, but it’s not your average classroom lecture or PBS special. These Queens tell their stories with pop music inspired by today’s biggest artists, like Britney Spears, Ariana Grande, Beyonce, and Adele. They’re reimagined as members of a modern girl group — think Spice Girls concert meets the English royal court. Even before coming to Broadway and picking up dozens of awards nominations and wins, including two Tony Awards, this show won awards and fans all around the world, and countless audiences have rocked out to the catchy music and celebrated historical girl power at Six.

In the Six musical, we’re taken back to the 15th century, when nearly all women are subject to an inevitable quest for a male heir. That quest led the six Queens to marry Henry VIII, with varying degrees of excitement about it, and they retell their marriage stories through song. Pitting themselves against one another, each wife takes to the mic to see who had it worst, and the winner gets to lead their girl group. But they realize that constant arguing and pettiness isn’t needed — women supporting women are stronger than any king. Summing up centuries of history into 80 minutes of theatre, the Six queens fix each other's crowns while changing your view on Tudor history.

A review of the show on New York Theatre Guide reads, “You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll dance. It’s everything a theatre experience should be and more.” So get ready to experience this one of a kind, no category musical — there’s no way you can miss it. Get tickets to Six on Broadway on TodayTix.

Six runs 80 minutes without an intermission.

Six matinee performances are at 2 or 3 p.m., and evening performances are at 7 or 8 p.m.

Six tickets are recommended for audiences aged 10 and up. Children under the age of 4 are not permitted in the theatre.

King Henry VIII was a Tudor monarch, ruling over England for nearly 40 years. During his time on the throne, he broke away from the Church of England and, even more famously, had six wives. While history lessons have taught us all about Henry VIII, they often spend little time on the wives, focusing mostly on how they died or else got rejected.

Six includes plenty of tongue-in-cheek jokes about their deaths and divorces, but it also includes firsthand accounts from the women themselves about what their lives, personalities, and talents are independent of Henry. You won’t get that in the history books — only on the Broadway stage. With a women-only cast (the Queens) and band (the Ladies in Waiting), Six on Broadway puts female power and girlbosses on the map.

The show came out of humble beginnings in England, when creators Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss wrote it during their last year at Cambridge University. At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, Six caught the attention of producers, and it went on to tour the U.K. and get a five-time Olivier Award-nominated run in London’s West End. The show went on to play Australia and tour the U.S., and Six continues to reign on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.

In 2022, the show got eight Tony nominations, including Best Musical. Six won for Best Original Score and Best Costume Design, for Gabriella Slade’s Tudor-chic-meets-glitzy-popstar designs.

What to Watch For

• Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss weren’t the only people from the Six team that first joined forces at the University of Cambridge. They met the musical director and lighting designer there, too.
• Six is such a short musical because it was written for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which has a time limit for productions. When Six premiered there in 2018, 10,000 people saw the show in one month.
• There’s a longstanding myth that Henry VIII wrote the English folk song “Greensleeves” for Anne Boleyn. It’s likely false, but the song is referenced in some of Anne’s Six lyrics, and you’ll hear its melody played on the harpsichord when you walk into the theatre.
• The Queens wear different accessories depending on their fate. The divorced women both wear spiked headbands, and the beheaded ones wear chokers.
• Each wife leads her own musical number, but they come together for a techno rave group number, “Haus of Holbein.” See the queens dance in their neon ruff collars and glasses and get ready to “Get Down” with Anna of Cleves right afterward.
• Since the London Six cast recording was released on Spotify in 2019, the songs have been streamed worldwide over 100 million times. In 2022, a recording of the show’s opening night performance on Broadway was released as a live album, further dominating Six’s reign over music streaming. Have you listened to the Six albums?