Interview: SIX Star Kirstin Maldonado Talks Broadway, Pentatonix, and Finding Her Anne Boleyn

Since bursting onto the music scene with Pentatonix, GRAMMY Award winner Kirstin Maldonado has built a career around the power of harmony. As the group's resident mezzo-soprano, she's helped redefine contemporary a cappella, earned multiple platinum-selling albums, and toured the world. Now, she's bringing those vocal talents back to Broadway, joining the cast of the Tony Award-winning musical Six as Anne Boleyn.

The role marks Maldonado's return to Broadway following her debut in Kinky Boots in 2018, but she's hardly been slowing down in the years since. Fresh off an international tour with Pentatonix, celebrating the group's 11th consecutive Top 10 album, Christmas in the City, and balancing life as a songwriter, performer, and mother of two, Maldonado has stepped into one of musical theater's most beloved contemporary shows.

BroadwayWorld caught up with Maldonado to discuss making Anne Boleyn her own, how her years singing in one of the world's most successful vocal groups prepared her for the demanding harmonies of Six, and what it means to return to the Broadway stage.

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How have you been keeping yourself healthy and vocally up to the enormous task of performing Six eight times a week?

With Six in particular, there's so much choreography that I wasn't used to at all. Singing a cappella and touring is obviously vocally demanding because you're constantly singing. I felt like I knew how to manage my voice over a long tour, but physically it's very different.

I've just been really mindful. I warm up physically much more than I used to. I take care of my knees, stretch, and really prepare my body before the show. I'm also disciplined about taking supplements and being mindful of where I'm going, how loud it is, and just my schedule in general. I have two kiddos and when you have two small children, you never know when you're going to get sick because of them. So it's really just about managing things as best you can. I think every show and every role requires something different. Some people's tracks are so demanding that they really don't have much of a life outside the show. Other people can socialize a little more and then go home and rest. It's all about figuring out how to manage the life you already have. We're doing okay, though. I've already gotten sick from the kids once, powered through it, got some antibiotics, and now we're on the other side of it. So I'm feeling good.

This is also your first time back on Broadway since before the pandemic. What has surprised you about returning to this world? Did you have to recalibrate at all? Were you intimidated coming back after so much time away?

Yeah. When I came to Kinky Boots in 2018, I was coming off a really big turning point in my life. Being on Broadway became this incredible return to myself. I met amazing people, and it was honestly a life-changing—and life-saving—experience. So coming back, I had all these questions. I wondered, "What's it going to be like? Are people going to be nice? How am I going to handle the schedule now that I'm a mom? How can anything ever live up to that first experience?" But honestly, while it's different, it's the same in all the best ways. It's different because I'm in a different place in my life, but it's been just as wonderful. I was surprised by how easy it felt to step back into this world. The people immediately put me at ease, and I remember thinking, "Why was I so stressed? This is going to be so much fun." It's also been great reconnecting with people I'd worked with before. Broadway is such a small community, so everywhere you turn it's, "Oh, I know this person," or, "I've worked with them." And then there's the story of Six itself. To be able to tell this story now, after everything that's happened in my life since 2018, makes it even more meaningful. I'm just really grateful.

Your day job is as one of the singers in the acapella group, Pentatonix, in which you are the only woman. What has it been like stepping into such a female-driven working environment?

It's meant so much, honestly. For so much of my life, I wanted to be "one of the guys." I wanted to fit into the fold—career-wise, work-wise, whatever it was. I was always trying not to make being a woman a thing. I wanted people to know, "Yeah, I can do this. I can get that done." Sometimes, when you're operating that way, your own needs get pushed aside because you're trying so hard not to make it about yourself. So it's been really lovely to be surrounded by a community of women, and also by the musical theater community, because that's where I first fell in love with music. It's what I absolutely love to do. Being back on Broadway with people who love theater and storytelling—and being around wonderful women, other moms, other women dealing with similar things—has been so fulfilling in a way I didn't expect. I knew it would be different, but I didn't realize how much it would fill my heart. It's just been so wonderful and so beautiful. Everyone has been so kind and supportive, and we're all just having the best time.

Pentatonix is a harmony-driven outfit, and Six seems like such a natural fit for that skill set. Were any aspects of singing this score with this cast that surprised you or challenged you in ways you didn't expect?

It's been really fun. One of the cast members asked me whether it felt different singing with all women instead of singing with the guys in Pentatonix. With Pentatonix, everyone covers such a wide vocal range, so you really have to fill your part of the spectrum. Here, everyone's voices are much closer together, and the timbres are naturally more similar because we're all women. It's a completely different kind of blend, but it's really beautiful. Honestly, the harmony itself felt exciting and familiar. The biggest challenge wasn't the singing—it was singing all those harmonies while moving so intensely. When you're not singing your own solo, you're dancing full-out behind everyone else's number. That was definitely my biggest adjustment, stamina-wise.

All the queens of Six have their own musical sound. Did you have to do any training to find the character's voice?

I wanted to highlight the pop-punk side of her because each queen has such a distinct musical identity. Amy Lee from Evanescence was everything to me growing up. She's one of my favorite singers. When I was younger, my mom bought me albums by Evanescence, Pink, Avril Lavigne, and all these incredible women leading bands with these huge, powerful voices. She wanted me to listen to women who were inspiring, strong artists. I absolutely loved that music growing up, so it was really fun to tap back into that part of myself.

You followed Dylan Mulvaney into this role. Were you able to shadow her or get any advice from any of the other former queens? Is there a group chat?

I actually came out early to rehearse. We had talked about timing, and summer made the most sense for my family. We had just finished a European tour, but I wanted to get started as soon as possible, so I came out in February and rehearsed ahead of time. Because of that, I got to watch some of the run-throughs. Adrianna Hicks—who was actually my college mentor and originated Catherine of Aragon on Broadway—was there, so it was really special getting to watch her and the company work. A lot of my rehearsal process was by myself, so being able to observe everyone perform was incredibly helpful. I loved seeing how each actor brought something different to their queen. Even while I was learning, I remember thinking, "This is so cool—everyone's interpretation is unique." Dylan was wonderful. She's so sweet. We stayed in touch after rehearsals, and when she started performances while I was back out on tour, I'd check in and ask how everything was going. She'd say, "It's hard!" [laughs] But she was great, and it was really nice getting to connect with her.

You've been in the role for about a month now. How has your performance evolved since that first show? What are you continuing to discover about Anne?

I think now that all of the choreography and staging feel second nature, I can bring more of Anne into every moment. At first my brain was occupied with, "Where do I go? What's this move?" Now all of that has settled in, so I have more freedom to play. I love the banter between all of us onstage. Everyone is so funny and so committed to their queen. We've started discovering little moments together that happen organically. Sometimes something works one night and we think, "Let's keep that." That's been really fun because I think those little interactions create a real sense of community between the queens. It reminds you that these aren't just Six women connected because they married the same man—they're Six incredible women who don't have to be pitted against each other.

I also find myself playing with little things every night. Maybe I'll say a line differently or bring a different energy depending on how I'm feeling. One night I was feeling especially spicy, so Henry VIII really got it that night. [laughs] You kind of bring your day with you, for better or worse, and sometimes you discover something new because of it.

Six has become incredibly meaningful to so many people—especially young girls. What does it mean to you to be part of Six and everything it represents?

Oh my gosh—it means everything. I think it's so important to be part of something that's saying, "No one else gets to write your story." You don't have to fit into someone else's mold or follow someone else's path. Who you are is important, and what you have to say is important. It's so easy, whether it's in your career or your personal life, to lose little pieces of yourself or stop being completely authentic. I think Six is a wonderful reminder not to let that happen. Getting to tell that story with such a strong, supportive community of women has been the absolute best experience. That's also one of the reasons I love playing Anne Boleyn. I love that my daughter gets to see a character who's unapologetically herself. 

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