Top 10 reasons to see 'Six' on Broadway

Read all about why you can't miss this "one of a kind, no category" musical.

If all you wanna do is have fun at a high-energy, eye-catching, contemporary new musical filled with pop music, then Six is the show for you. British writers Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss wrote this musical when they were still college students, so it was only natural that their show would amass young fans all over the globe. But this isn't only a show for young people. Anyone who's ever jammed out to popular songs on the radio and/or loves history will enjoy Six, which reimagines the six wives of Tudor monarch Henry VIII as a fierce girl group in the vein of the Spice Girls.

You'll feel like you're at a Broadway show and a stadium concert all in one, and for history that includes a lot of divorcing and dying, there's plenty of humor. There are a lot of Broadway shows out there, so don't lose your head figuring out which one to see. Read on to discover why the Tony Award winner Six is the musical you can't miss.

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Six is a Tony Award-winning musical.

It would have been uncanny if Six got six Tony nominations, but the show actually did better and got eight, including Best Musical, Best Choreography, and Best Direction of a Musical. The show won two awards: Best Original Score for creators Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, and Best Costume Design of a Musical for Gabriella Slade. It won the same two awards, plus the Outstanding Musical honor, at the 2022 Outer Critics Circle Awards, and won the Ensemble Award and Outstanding Costume Design of a Musical at the Drama Desk Awards. Six is feast for both the eyes and ears, and its many honors on both counts prove that. 

The costumes are dazzling.

Speaking of those costumes, you might be wondering what makes them award-winning. Think of the sleek, shiny outfits that today's pop stars wear on tour, like bedazzled dresses and leotards. Now imagine them with subtle (yet still sparkly) Tudor-era accents like high collars and pleated skirts. Slade's costumes effortlessly combine the old and the new, and there are lots of fun little details to look out for. For example, the two queens who were divorced wear a common accessory, as do the two who were beheaded.

The music is inspired by pop stars like Britney Spears, Adele, and Nicki Minaj.

And what makes the Tony Award-winning music so cool? Well, it takes inspiration from musicians you already hear on the radio and put on your Spotify playlists. Each Queen gets her own song inspired by the style of a different pop star. Katherine Howard's number, "All You Wanna Do," is in the bubblegum-pop style of Ariana Grande and Britney Spears, whereas Anna of Cleves's "Get Down" is infused with a hip-hop flair, and Jane Seymour's power ballad "Heart of Stone" has the more mellow pop sound of Adele and Sia.

You'll feel like you're at a pop concert.

You're not just going to hear the pop music while sitting silently in your seat. The audience is just as much a part of the show as the Queens, as they're competing for your applause to see who gets to lead their girl group. There are multiple points during Six where the audience is encouraged to cheer and clap along. At the end, the Queens perform a "Megasix" medley of all the songs in the show, and you can get on your feet and dance.

Lots of famous people have seen Six.

What do Jimmy Fallon, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bowen Yang, Wayne Brady, former First Lady Michelle Obama, and First Lady Jill Biden all have in common? They've all been in the audience of Six on Broadway. The stars agree — Six is one of a kind, no category! Maybe you'll have a celebrity sighting of your own when you see the show.

Six puts a feminist spin on history.

"Remember us from PBS?" Catherine of Aragon asks in the opening number. But Six is nothing like your average PBS special, or even a history lesson in a textbook. Most lessons on Henry VIII and his wives focus on Henry and reduce the Queens to the rhyme "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived." In Six, however, Henry is nowhere in sight, and the Queens get the microphone. Each sings their story about their marriage as they experienced it, with plenty of modern pop culture references and sass. This is herstory as you've never heard it before.

The musical is 80 minutes long.

You won't have to worry about sitting through a show that drags on. Six runs just under an hour and a half with no intermission and keeps the energy up the whole time. Its quick running time makes it a great show to see at the last minute — you can squeeze in a performance between the other errands or events on your calendar! This also makes Six a great show for first-timers or young audiences with a shorter attention span.

The two cast albums have millions of streams online.

Six became popular worldwide long before it left the U.K., and that's due in part to the popularity of its cast album. The original London cast of Six recorded an album in 2018 and it blew up online — it's now been streamed more than 100 million times. In 2021, when Six finally had its opening night on Broadway, the songs were recorded live during the performance and released as the Broadway cast album in 2022. So if you're one of the many people who know every word to one or both of these albums, you have to check out the full show.

You can see the musical live before it gets released as a film.

The current London production of Six is being filmed for release at a yet-unspecified date. But before everyone sees it on screen, you can say you were among the people that got to see it in person first. Plus, the Broadway show isn't getting filmed (as far as we know), so you have to come here live to see this stellar cast.

Six is a great show for audiences of (almost) all ages.

Six isn't geared toward really young kids — many references to romance and beheading will definitely go over their heads. But anyone else, from older children to adults, will "experience pure musical theatre elation for a pop-packed 75 minutes," as our critic described Six in a five-star theatre review. The show has cultivated a wide fanbase among young audiences, but there's something for everyone to love at Six, whether you find yourself staring in awe at the eye-popping costumes and choreography, singing and dancing along to the catchy tunes, or appreciating the feminist take on the history you think you know. It's a thoroughly fun spectacle, and there's no way you can miss it.

Get Six tickets now.