BWW Blog: What Six the Musical Taught Me About History

Six the Musical. A musical all about the six ex-wives of Henry The 8th in a 1hr 30min concert. It may seem a little different to some but in all honesty, it is all based on history. And think about it, learning history through a concert musical on Broadway? YES PLEASE. I have never seen Six the Musical (but I hope to soon) but I have seen many clips on YouTube, Instagram and Twitter and I constantly have the West End cast recording on repeat to where Ex-Wives is my break-up song and Don't Lose Your Head is my life anthem. Yeah, it is that good of a musical that I have yet to see.

If there is one thing that I am certain about with Six is that even though it is a musical on Broadway where the queens are singing and dancing and you could even say, getting their revenge on Henry The 8th, Six can actually teach you some history that can actually be really helpful. How do I know this you might ask? Well, I ended up doing a project on Henry The 8th and his wives. And you ought to know that Six The Musical was part of the project and just so we are clear, I did get an A+ on the assignment.

In my senior year of high school, I was enrolled in an American Civilization class which was one of the best classes I have taken (shoutout to Mr. Rogers!) It was the final project of the school year and we all had to do a report on a famous historical figure complete with a PowerPoint and a skit. Knowing my past history with PowerPoints and projects, I have not been the best at them but I have not given up hope. That day when our topics were given out, I was given Henry The 8th. I freaked out. I had no idea about Henry the 8th and I had no clue what I was going to research and what I was going to put on my PowerPoint and what my skit was going to be. But alas, there was gold at the end of the rainbow when I realized I had one resource: Six the Musical. I remember that I knew about Henry The 8th and his 6 ex-wives and their history all through the cast recording and reading the stories about the queens and the inspiration for the musical characters. At this point, I knew I had hope.

Weeks past and after listening to the cast album over 100 times and reading the tales of the queens and of Henry The 8th, I had my project. I had a PowerPoint and I had a report. But there was one thing missing: The skit. I had no clue what I was going to do for the skit. But luckily for me, I had YouTube on my side. I did some browsing on YouTube and after searching "Six the Musical Skit" I found what I have been looking for. So, I ordered a costume, I wore some makeup, and found an instrumental of Ex-Wives on YouTube. And at that moment, I stood in front of the class, in Six cosplay and all and I sang and danced to Ex-Wives as all the queens. Not only did I have all the knowledge I needed in a killer presentation, but after that performance, I was known as the "Queen of The Classroom" and I got that A+ and even a few smiles from my classmates. And all because of a musical about the six ex-wives of Henry The 8th. So, if you are ever in a pickle on a history project about a famous person you can always remember: Broadway is always a great resource because if there has been a notable famous person in history, there is probably a musical on them.

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