PNC Broadway’s ‘SIX’ Opens at Benedum (Tues., 3/14/23)

Being in a marriage can be difficult at times, few know this more than the six wives of Henry VIII. ‘Six’ the musical celebrates them as strong, independent women. (Photo: Joan Marcus)

SIX (musical) by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. National touring company at Benedum Center. March 14 – 19. 

“King Henry the Eighth to six wives was wedded / One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded.” As the old rhyme indicates, the queen’s chair was a hot seat in the England of Henry VIII. Henry went to extreme lengths to dump Catherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn, soon executed on adultery charges while Henry blatantly pursued wife #3. Anne of Cleves, recruited from Germany as wife #5, got shuffled aside in short order after she showed up looking insufficiently attractive. So it went, and any decent soothsayer might’ve predicted that someday there would be a musical about these women. Now there is. SIX, by British artists Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, imagines the wives as modern pop stars forming a supergroup. At first they compete in song and story to decide who was treated worst by Henry—but along the way, they discover validation as strong women in their own right. After scoring hits in London’s West End and on Broadway, SIX has been put on tour. 7:30 p.m. Then see and hear SIX at Benedum Center, 237 7th St., Cultural District. (M.V.)

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