I have said in an earlier blog post that I am not a fancy lady. I spent most of my twenties and early thirties frequenting local bars and nothing makes me happier than tailgating and attending a Kansas City Chiefs game. However, I haven't been devoid of the finer things in life. My paternal grandmother loved the theater. She would take me to dinner playhouses throughout my childhood, including a weekend in NYC when I graduated high school to see several Broadway shows. I enjoyed going to plays and musicals, not enough to ever attend anything like that on my own or spend my own money on it.
Then came my daughter... a smart, talented kid who gravitated to all things musical on her own. She discovered the phenomenon that was Hamilton when she was in 7th grade. From then on, the music coming from her room went from Katy Perry and Taylor Swift (although she does revisit Tay Tay from time to time) to showtunes.
Little by little we would attend local theater until I got as addicted to it as she was. Right before COVID, we bought season tickets to our local performance arts center. The tickets themselves were in the nosebleed section, but we would still be live and in person for all the brightest and the best performances that came to our town. Then, COVID hit and ruined those plans for a good two years, but finally the show did, in fact, go on.
The season tickets give us approximately one show a month for about six (no pun intended) months. Holy cow, did we have fun our first year being season ticket holders! My favorite part of those evening was the car ride home. We dissected each show. When the shows are good it's a lot of fun to swap our favorite scenes of the night. When the shows are bad, we get to laugh at the moments that were either cringe-inducing or pick apart what we surmised was the reason a show sucked.
Six was the musical that kicked off our second season as ticket holders. This is a musical about Henry VIII's six wives and their infamous ill-fated lives. It doesn't seem like it would be a fun time, but it was great! In fact, it was so good that I got a little sad about half-way through the performance, as I don't know that any of the other shows this year will be able to top it. I have broken down my 6 favorite things about the play. (There aren't any spoilers, but quite honestly, it is a piece of historical fiction that everyone vaguely knows about. The ending does have a fun little twist that I won't ruin.)
The music- Much like Hamilton, even though the setting of the story was centuries old, the music is modern. Where Hamilton was comprised of Rap and Hip Hop, Six is more of a Rock N' Roll concert (mixed with some pop) complete with a light show and a kick-ass band behind them.
An all female cast- This isn't just the six wives, but the fantastic musicians (bass, guitar and keyboard players along with a drummer) on the stage were all woman who brought down the house.
It was one-act- The entirety of the show is 80 minutes, but it is pretty much constant music and dance the whole time. It would be hard to have that much energy on the stage, take a break and then try to amp it back up after an intermission.
The costumes- I described the costuming as triangle dresses with sparkles, my daughter corrected me and said that it was a type of steam-punk fashion.
The dancing- It was non-stop. I can't imagine how exhausted these six women must be after each show. If there is a matinee and a night show, these ladies must be knocked out at the end of each night. There are a some scenes were each of the women takes the spotlight for a solo and the rest sit down. Forget Tai Bo, I think an 80 minute Six workout may be the new exercise craze!
It was very meta- I don't want to expand too much on this, as it is the only spoiler (kind of) and it is how they wrap up the show. The play was very self aware of history and the juxtaposition to modern day. They did a fantastic job and ended on a high note.
Have any of my readers have seen this musical? If so, what was your opinion? What is your favorite musical? How awesome is Patrick Mahomes? (Sorry, just wanted to prove I haven't gone full fancy.) Leave a comment below and tell me your thoughts.
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