Want a live concert, a game show, and a musical? Watch ‘Six’ at Academy of Music

In Six: The Musical, running at the Kimmel Center’s Academy of Music, March 21-April 9, the queens are the stars. British King Henry VIII’s ex-wives unite for a game show-slash-pop concert to determine which one had it worse. The opening song explains their fates: Catherine of Aragon, divorced; Anne Boleyn, beheaded; Jane Seymour, died; Anna of Cleves, divorced; Katherine Howard, beheaded; and Catherine Parr, survived.

Also on stage are the Ladies in Waiting, the four-person band backing the pop star queens’ punchy feminist retelling of Tudor history. Each member is named after actual ladies-in-waiting who served the queens. The band performs with the cast for the entire show, complete with elaborate period costumes.

Drummer Caroline Moore plays Maria de Salinas, who served Catherine of Aragon and held the queen in her arms as she was dying. “Maria was like the best friend to Aragon,” said Moore. “So I’ll wear gold eye shadow to kind of match Aragon, to make it more fun.”

Another lady-in-waiting for Catherine of Aragon, Elizabeth “Bessie” Blount, also served Anna of Cleves. Played by bassist Sterlyn Termine, she was a mistress of Henry VIII who bore him an illegitimate son. (Maybe Bessie should have her own song, too?) Lady Margaret “Maggie” Lee was part of Anne Boleyn’s flock, and is played by guitarist Liz Faure. Joan Meutas, who served Jane Seymour, is the keyboardist, a role that alternates between musical director Lena Gabrielle and associate musical director Jane Cardona.

Most of the band members had served as substitute musicians on Six and performed in shows on and off Broadway before landing their roles on the Boleyn tour. That tour stops in Philadelphia and other cities on the East coast and in the Midwest, while the Aragon tour — with a different cast, band, and crew — plays the West coast.

Termine, though, is a newcomer to this regal stage. She picked up bass in 2018 and soon met Janetta Sherrell Goines, the bassist on the Aragon tour, who connected her to Six’s music team. “We were simply just friends, like through the DMs, because she was a Black female bassist and so was I [and] it’s not many of us out here,” Termine said.

“I got into musical theater because I wanted to be in a pit under the stage and not be seen,” said Cardona, laughing. Playing Six demands versatility for the songbook’s mix of pop, English folk, jazz, and EDM. The job also requires the band to be on stage each night — not in the orchestra pit — costumed and bedazzled to accompany the high-energy cast.

“If I was in a pit playing the drums, I wouldn’t be hamming it up nearly as much as I am,” said Moore. “I’m making a bit more effort whenever I’m hitting the cymbals and stuff because it’s a show.”

For Moore, Six was a bit of a learning curve. They had to quickly adapt to an electric drum kit, which is different from the kits they typically play. The tour’s instrumentation differs from Broadway, where a fifth player under the stage would provide percussion and keyboard cues when the queens struck a pose.

“There are these musical accents that are like, bam! And bah! Those lights are synced up to the physical notes that we’re playing on the keyboard,” Gabrielle said. “If we play the wrong note, the lights will not go … you have to be very, very precise.”

Keeping up the stamina can be difficult, of course, but the band says between the stellar cast and the buzzing audience, the enthusiasm is contagious. The musical’s feminism is a big motivator as well. “For me, just seeing the way the audience receives the message is really special, especially seeing the kids come dressed up in their costumes,” said Faure. “We didn’t have anything like this when I was a kid.”

“My favorite line is in Catherine Parr’s song, she’s like ‘I did all these cool things, why can’t I tell that story?’” said Gabrielle. Parr’s “I Don’t Need Your Love” resonated with Moore, too. “It reminds me every night that you can reframe whatever your narrative is … you can create your own story. There’s more to you than you think there is.”

“Six: The Musical” runs at the Kimmel Cultural Campus’ Academy of Music from March 21-April 9, 240 S. Broad St., Phila., 215-893-1999 or kimmelculturalcampus.org.