SIX: The Musical Live!

The show is at a concert for the famous and popular pop girl group “Six”, consisting of the six wives of Henry VIII. The stage goes dark, and one by one individual spotlights flash on the six women as they say their places in the famous limerick – divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. They greet the audience as they announce they are here, live – and in harmony as they begin singing the opening song, “Ex-Wives”. With incredible costumes and amazing, fast-paced choreography, the song explains that although the audience may have heard of them, they haven’t heard the story from them. They promise to reveal the real truth, and that they used to be six wives, but now they’re ex-wives.

During the song, the six women take a moment to introduce themselves individually, in the order they were married to the king. There’s Catherine of Aragon, (Jarneia Richard-Noel), married to him the longest. Then the famous Anne Boleyn (Millie O’Connell), whose scandal rocked the country. Third was Jane Seymour (Natalie Paris), the only one the king loved. Then, Anna of Cleves (Alexia McIntosh), who the king liked a portrait of but rejected upon seeing her in real life. Fifth is Katherine Howard (Aimie Atkinson), who was known for her promiscuity. Finally there’s Catherine Parr (Maiya Quansah-Breed), the survivor.

The song concludes and the ladies ask the audience how they’re doing and welcome them to their “Divorced Beheaded Live” Tour. They introduce the band and each member of the band plays a solo. The women tell the crowd know that everyone has always argued which wife was the most important, and that they need the audience to help them figure out who should be the wife to lead the band. They explain that the one to win should be the one who had to put up with the most from King Henry, “whoever had the most hardships to withstand will be the one to lead the band”. Each woman is going to get one song to make their case why they should be the winner.

First up is Catherine of Aragon, who explains how she was forced to marry her dead husband’s brother, Henry, and that they began trying for the male heir Henry so desperately wanted. Even after having daughters, Henry went and had an affair, moved his mistress into their castle, and then finally decided he wanted their marriage annulled and Catherine sent to a nunnery. When she heard this, she said “No Way” – the name of her song, a fast-paced Beyonce style song delivered to King Henry about how much she dealt with but she is not putting up with this. If he thinks he can just replace her there’s “no way” – she refuses to go to a nunnery (she doesn’t think she’d look good in a wimple!). Catherine feels confident that she won and is ready for her crown… but the next contender has something to say.

The women introduce the scandal-filled Anne Boleyn, who is distracted looking at her phone. Her uptempo pop song “Sorry Not Sorry” starts, and she tells the story of how she after she met the king her family encouraged her pursue the king. The king wanted her so badly, sending her constant love letters. Once the affair began, the king moved her into the castle, where she managed to convince the king that Catherine of Aragorn needed to go. Anne doesn’t really think she did much wrong, singing “Sorry Not Sorry”, that she didn’t mean any of it. Henry officially ousted Henry and married Anne, but typical Henry began cheating on Anne. She retaliated, cheating and insulting the king – who demands “off with her head”. Anne insists she’s sorry (not sorry), but ends up beheaded. “What a weekend”, Anne says.

Next is Jane Seymour, who sings her deep and slow ballad “Heart of Stone”. She and the king were truly in love, and Jane was so excited to finally have a child, but she died in childbirth and never got to see her child grow up. She knows Henry was stone-hearted, and explained that unlike the other wives who fought against Henry’s behavior, she made herself stone and stayed by his side – not because she was weak, but because she loved him. She sings that her love for her family is unbreakable like stone. Though she’s sad she won’t see her son live his live, she explains that her love for him is also set in stone. The other women harmonize as she ascends to her high notes.

After that marriage, Henry began a search for his next bride. He went to Germany where he asked the legendary painter Hans Holbein for help – and the women don glow in the dark sunglasses and accessories to sing the club banger style track “Haus of Holbein”. The ladies take turns singing as they explain how Holbein went all over Europe painting the most beautiful women in the world for Henry so that he could view them and choose his next bride. In the song the women describe the insane lengths they had to go to for beauty at that time, such as corsets and having to use unorthodox methods for hair and makeup. Finally, based on her portrait, the king selects Anna of Cleves.

Anna, seeming sad, explains that when she arrived, with her meager beauty she did not live up to Henry’s standards. Her sarcasm shines through when she notes it’s a classic story of an educated young princess deemed repulse by a man twenty-four years older who was hideously ulcer-ridden. She bemoans her sad sad fate of… being forced to move out to her own house and given more riches then she could ever spend in a lifetime – and no man around to tell her what to do with it. With a smile, she says it’s so tragic, as her song, “Get Down”, a Nicki Minaj style track, starts. The song is all about how she’s living the high life, having parties, hunting, scoping out men. She declares that she’ll hang up her portrait for everyone to see, and no one can stop her. Midway in, she rips off her jacket to for a costume reveal to a read beaded bodysuit. She gets an audience member to stand up and dance with her before her song ends. The other women point out her situation didn’t sound very difficult, and Anna agrees. “Guess I’ll go back to the palace!” She brags.

The women begin arguing with each other about who is front-runner for queen of the band, and the women realize Katherine Howard is next in the contest. The women don’t expect her to do well, since she’s not even as relevant as the other Catherine. Katherine goes down the line and throws barbs at all the other women, ending with Anna – “getting rejected for your looks sounds really rough. I wouldn’t know anything about that.” She says she probably has no way of competing with them, since she’s just the hot one. “Oh wait, like this.” She says as her song “All You Wanna Do” starts.

She says ever since she was a child the boys went wild for her. First, her music teacher began a relationship with her when he was 23 and she was 13 – he says they have a connection, and Katherine assumes this is love. The next man asked her to work as a secretary, then comes on to her – Katherine thinks this time will be different – it wasn’t. Then came Henry, at this point old and ugly, who saw her and made her a lady in waiting. Then he too saw their “connection”, and Katherine reluctantly marries him. Living with Henry is hard, but then a courtier named Thomas begins looking out for her. She finally thinks she has found a friend, but then he says they have a “connection”. Katherine realizes it’s never ever going to be different. During the chorus of the song, a sexy Britney Spears style song, Katherine sings “all you wanna do is touch me, love me, can’t get enough me”, and as the song goes on it becomes clear that she is being sexualized and used by men over and over, the words going from fun to dark.

Katherine was then beheaded for her “promiscuity”. The women continue arguing about who had it worse, and then encourage Catherine Parr to sing her song so they can end the contest. The music starts… and Catherine says she can’t do it. She admits that she doesn’t feel right about them competing and comparing their tragedies for the audience’s affection. The other women snipe at her for not trying, and Catherine decides to sing something. She tells the audience how she actually was married before, two of her husbands died and in addition to the grief she had to keep finding men to marry to survive in society. Finally, she met a man named Thomas and they fell in love. They were going to be married, but then Henry found her and she was forced to write a letter to Thomas to end things.

Catherine begins her song, the Alicia Keys-style “I Don’t Need Your Love”, as a letter to Thomas. She tells him she loves him and wishes they could have their life together, but she is forced to say “I don’t need your love”. Her only way to stay alive is to do what the king wants and not defy him – she can’t say anything back. However, in the next part of the song she imagines what she would say to him if she could: she tells him she’ll never belong to him, and that she would ever give up her dreams for him. She then tells him “I don’t need your love”. But she married Henry until he died, making her the final wife. She wonders why that should be the story she has to sing about to win, and sings that she is out of the contest. She explains that there’s so much more to her story – she became a writer of books and psalms, and fought for women to be educated.

Catherine says that the only reason the audience is there is because the same man fell in love with all of them. When they describe themselves as the sixth wives of Henry VIII, they are constantly being compared to each other with no one ever looking at who they were outside of Henry. The women seem down, realizing this and that the whole contest was a waste of time. They wander across the stage, idling each by themselves trying to figure out what to do. The women say that if they had realized this before the show, they could have done something else – like a fake competition to show how unfair it is to compare them that way, to show they are so much more than just one word in a rhyme, more than Henry’s wife. Then they could have reclaimed their stories, if only they had thought of it before… together, they turn to the audience with a sly grin, revealing that was their true plan all along. The women join in to sing “I Don’t Need Your Love (Remix)” together with Catherine, telling Henry they are through and that they are taking control.

Celebratory, they tell the audience they wish their stories could have happy endings – and since they have five minutes left in the show, they can give themselves whatever ending they want, since it’s their show. Together they sing “Six”, and each woman decides what ending she would like. Catherine tells Henry “No Way” and leads the gospel choir at the nunnery to the top of the charts. Anne took Henry’s poem about her green sleeves and set it to music – she got signed and is writing lyrics for “Shakesy P”. Jane had a huge family and they formed a family band – “The Royaling Stones”. Anna moves to the Haus of Holbein to party with them, Katherine rebuffed her music teacher and became a singer on her own. Catherine Parr heard about the other women, loved their music, found them and formed the band Six. They finish the song as gold confetti blows and the crowd cheers.

Katherine Howard asks the crowd if they want to hear one more song. They cheer, and the women sing “Megasix” as an encore. It’s a super fast mash-up of each of their individual songs as one by one the women do snippet of the songs from throughout the show, and they mash-up into each other. They hit a final harmony together as Six as the audience goes wild.

Last updated: September 02, 2026 at 21:44

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