How the Cast of 'SIX' Prepares for a Big Night on the Broadway Stage

“SIX” may have been wowing audiences on Broadway for close to three years now, but it’s showing no signs of slowing down. Winner of the 2022 Tony Award for Best Musical Score, the stunning show is still queen of New York’s Theater District.

You wouldn’t think the retelling of the stories of King Henry VIII of England’s six wives in musical form would be a hit. But the energy of the powerful pop music, the over-the-top Tudor-meets-modern-day diva costumes, and the inspired voices of the women get audiences on their feet and the six female leads fired up, night after night. “There's people literally screaming, crying. How could I look at that and not be excited?” says Olivia Donalson, whose Anna of Cleves is a real powerhouse.

The premise of the show is a competition among the six wives to determine who was treated the worst by Henry. The show’s creators, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, reportedly modeled each woman's character after specific pop icons. For instance, Ann Boleyn, played by Storm Lever, conjures Miley Cyrus, Avril Lavigne and Lily Allen; Donalson’s Anna channels Nicki Minaj and Rihanna. It’s a mix of history, female empowerment, humor and joy in a uniquely creative package.

The costumes, makeup and music recall the best of today’s stadium shows–indeed, the SIX: Live on Opening Night Broadway album debuted at Number 1 on the Billboard charts and has been streamed more than 100 million times worldwide.

Parade spoke to Lever, Donalson and their castmates Khaila Wilcoxon (Catherine of Aragon), Gabriela Carrillo (Catherine Parr) and Jasmine Forsberg (Jane Seymour) backstage (the sixth lead, Didi Romero, who plays Katherine Howard, was unavailable) before a performance during the busy summer tourist season to get a glimpse of how they get revved up for their 90 minutes onstage.

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How do you prepare for a show? Do you have a pre-show routine?

Khaila Wilcoxon [Catherine of Aragon]: I come to the theater maybe two hours before our call time, which is half an hour before the show. The first thing I do is do my makeup. As soon as I'm done, I take 30 minutes and warm up my voice. It’s super imperative that I warm up my voice because I'm Aragon and I sing the bottom and the top [register] at various points of the show. I have to do an extensive body warm up, which I do for about 20 to 30 minutes. I try to be done by the time they call half hour [before curtain]. I listen to a lot of Beyoncé beforehand too.

Jasmine Forsberg [Jane Seymour]: Well, just before you came in here, Storm and I were doing a warm up together. When Storm is not here, I'm doing my own thing. But when she is there, we do a group warmup.

Storm Lever [Anne Boleyn]: We usually turn on our little warm up to make sure our voices are warmed up. I have to say, I get here disgustingly early, like two hours before our show starts.

Olivia Donalson [Anna of Cleves]: My pre-show routine involves watching a television program for an hour and a half while I put on my makeup, and I have my Nespresso, and I attempt water sometimes as well. Someone told me that I should consider, like, warming up. I haven't quite considered that yet, but I do feel like I'm in good spirits, so that's most of the battle.

Gabriela Carrillo [Catherine Parr]: Mine just kind of depends on when I walk through the door. If I've had a very busy day, I could be showing up like 45 minutes before the show starts and it's like, O.K., do the makeup while warming up and doing the hair, and I have no time for anything.

And then sometimes it's very leisurely and I'll show up here two hours before the show, and I'll do like a 15 minute vocal warm up. I'll just find a video on YouTube—shout out to Kathleen Hansen. She's my girl on YouTube—I love her warm ups. I heavily caffeinate before the show. Then I just decide on how much time I'm going to take with the makeup. So for me, it definitely varies day by day.

Lever: Another tradition that we have before we enter the curtain, the six of us gather behind the curtain and we circle up and we pass around two words we want to pick for the day that we want to send around the circle. It's a great way for us to check in before we share the space. It's a great way for us to, like, be honest about where we're at, what we need from each other, how we can support each other as we go on the journey together.

Forsberg: Those words originally started as “love” and “light,” but then, after an eight-show week, maybe even a 14-show week, it’s something like “ease”, or at the end of the week, we love to pull out a “conquer” because we've done it–we’ve finished the week.

How do you protect your voices during the day of the show?

Lever: I have my emotional support water. All throughout the day, you need to make sure you're hydrating and staying moist and not talking crazy amounts during the day, because just doing what we do, we feel it at night.

Forsberg: [And at our makeup station] we have a humidifier to keep the air nice and moist.

How do you keep your energy so high through the show?

Wilcoxon: Honestly, the audience. They're the seventh queen, quite honestly. They give us the energy that we need. Whatever they give us, we give back to them. And that's probably my favorite thing about this show.

Lever: I’m a night owl, so I thrive having a job in the evening—singing in the morning, I am not functional. So I already get perky towards the later hours of the day. I guess for me it's about making sure I'm not overexerting myself during the day so my peak energy is saved for doing this.

We always joke that the show is like, invite your friends to watch you do a 90-minute cardio class. You have to make sure that you're ready to jump up and down for 90 minutes, or to scream at an audience.

Donalson: Some days are better than others just mentally and individually. But thankfully the show is so upbeat and I can't help but have high energy, like there's no option. It's kind of one of those things where you trick your body or you trick your mind by, you know, the physicality of something. I'm jumping and smiling and like, whoa—maybe I am actually really excited about life right now.

Carrillo: It's like something just turns on, something clicks. Even on days when I'm like, I have no energy. I don't know that I can do this. And then the minute the curtain comes up and we hear the audience screaming, and it's just like it just turns on. There's no way that we could do a weak show. I've never seen any one of us do a weak show. The show is a huge party. And the audience element helps immensely because we make eye contact with these people that are so excited to be here.

Can you talk about the importance of your costumes?

Wilcoxon: Each queen has their own color, and each costume is unique in its own color and form. But I like mine the best because it is emulating Beyonce, who is the queen of all queens. She has a costume she wears that’s similar. I love it.

Lever: I’ve never worn anything like this in a show before, and I think what's unique about them is they're plastic. And so it looks fantastic on the stage–they're really, bright, they're really structured. Each of the costumes is so unique, but definitely it was a learning curve of how to move and those costumes, because most of the time when you're moving, you're in, you know, material that wants to move with you. And our costumes work against us sometimes, and so we have to train ourselves and find a way to adjust the movement to the armor that we're wearing.

Forsberg: I remember the first time I put on that Seymour corset, like so much of our movement incorporates body rolls, and that's physically not possible in some of these costumes. It feels like we're putting on armor when we're getting dressed downstairs. The costumes are just so special, even the symbolism of the colors that have been chosen for us. Like, Seymour's costume is primarily white in the bodice, and that has to do with her sense of purity. She was this idea of the only one [King Henry the VIII] truly loved, like her marriage was untainted because they weren't married long enough for it to potentially sour.

Lever: The poem “Greensleeves” is a lot of what inspired Ann Boleyn’s characteristics, so they made her costume green. I also think it ties into some “green with envy” because there’s a lot of envy that Henry had for Ann Boleyn throughout her time as queen. Each of the costumes has an element of the history in why they picked that color.

Donalson: I love getting to like stomp, strut down the stage in these thigh-high boots–I just feel unbelievable. And, yeah, the colors are so distinct and that's my identity. I’m the red one.

Carrillo: There’s so many details that even being in the show, I didn't realize. Somebody told me, 7 or 8 months into being in the show, oh yeah, the two beheaded queens have chokers, necklaces. So like, they might cover their scar or whatever they would have there. It's those little things. It's amazing. And the Catherine of Aragon costume is inspired by armor because she was kind of a warrior queen, and, my character wears pants because I think she's very she's a very progressive woman. So I think that's kind of a nod to that.

What is the process of getting into character like?

Forsberg: We've been doing [the show] for two and a half years now, so it really feels like these characters live in our body. As soon as you put that armor on, that's like symbolic of you stepping into character. Putting on those boots, too, gives a sense of elevation, like true queens, hold their heads up high and never let their crowns fall. The last thing that I do in my process is put my wig on. When I put on that dark brown, sophisticated, very old Hollywood-style wig, that's the final piece of getting ready. Once I'm fully in costume, it's like, oh, she's here.

Lever: I'm very grateful that Jasmine's my roommate because she lets me blast some music before every show. This show is so much of a pop concert, so I feel like for me to get into the vibe of the show, it's important to like, remember that Queen, remember that pop diva that we're all about to channel, and to start playing the hits and get ourselves pumped up before we go on to the stage.

Carrillo: I know the character so well. And so I don't have a process where I meditate for ten minutes. I've had that for other shows. If it's a highly emotional show, I have a playlist and I'm there, like with my eyes closed in my headphones and I'm getting into the zone. But this one I can just summon Catherine Parr and she comes to me.

Donalson: We also had the pleasure of being cast really well, and they've let us bring our personalities to the role, and so it doesn't feel like I'm having to, like, transform. I feel like I get to bring myself to the stage.

What would you tell the women in the audience who want to get on Broadway?

Wilcoxon: Please just continue to be your most authentic self. You can't look forward if you're looking behind or to the side. You have to stay on your path. Your path is only going to be your path. You cannot worry about what your friends are doing. You just have to be yourself.

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