In live theater, it’s typically frowned upon to pause the whole show because you’re sweaty. But when you’re shooting the filmed version of a stage musical, “pat down breaks” are a necessity.
“You get very sweaty,” confesses Aimie Atkinson, one of the stars of Six the Musical Live!, the stage-to-screen translation of the Tony-winning Broadway hit that hands the mic to six of marriage-happy British monarch Henry the VIII’s eight wives. The filmed version, which reunites the six members of the original West End production, opens in theaters in the U.S. and Canada on Aug. 14.
“There were a few moments of, ‘Stop! Your eyelash is on your face instead of your eye,’” continues Atkinson, who plays Katherine Howard, Henry’s fifth wife. “That was nice because in the show, you just have to keep going even if your wig’s fallen off.”
Jarnéia Richard-Noel, who plays Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, also appreciated that the cast could take breaks in between filming songs to catch their breath, a luxury not afforded when performing the 80-minute musical on stage without an intermission or scene changes. “When they’re like, ‘Let’s do this song again,’ I can because I’ve just had a two-minute break,” says the actress.
On the flip side, each of Six’s songs is only performed once at any given show. When filming the movie version, the same songs were performed multiple times back-to-back to capture all necessary angles.
“We would do it like 10 times,” remembers Atkinson, “At the end of ‘All You Wanna Do,’ I was like, ‘I’m gonna die. If they tell me to do this one more time, I will say no.’” (For reference, “All You Wanna Do” is a seven-minute-long solo for Katherine.)
Now that all the sweating and close-up shots are in the past, though, the six actresses who star in the Six film can look back at the week-long shoot with fondness — especially since it nearly didn’t happen. While a filmed version had been in the works following the show’s gangbusters West End premiere in 2019, those plans were waylaid by COVID pandemic. By the time U.K. theaters reopened, half of the original West End cast had moved on.
Then in 2022, a dual opportunity presented itself when the idea for a special Six performance at Henry VIII’s Hampton Court Palace came up. What if the six original queens reunited to not only perform at Hampton Court, but also to film the movie right after?
“It’s a miracle it actually happened,” says Atkinson. “So many of us were in other shows at the time, so we had to get taken out to film.”
Shot in 2022, Six the Musical Live! opened in U.K. cinemas in April 2025 and is finally coming to U.S. theaters after a lengthy delay, which means fans can stop bugging the actresses for a release date. “Every day my DMs were blowing up. ‘WHEN IS THIS MOVIE COMING OUT?’” laughs Alexia McIntosh, who plays wife No. 4, Anna of Cleves.
But the wait might work in Six‘s favor. Last month, Hadestown: The Movie became the highest-grossing filmed version of a Broadway musical, banking over $20 million at the box office. Like Six, that film reunited members of the show’s original Broadway cast, including Tony winner André De Shields, making it an event for all those musical theater fans who weren’t able to see the production onstage.
Despite not having performed the show together since 2022, the original Six cast is still in constant communication. “We see each other all the time,” confirms Richard-Noel. “The group chat’s poppin.” In addition to bumping into each other on London’s theater circuit, the women also formed their own pop group called SVN, which releases their own music and performs regularly. “We’re gonna be bonded our whole lives,” says Atkinson. “We’ve become more than friends. We’re family.”
Back in June 2022, the whole family — including much of the show’s original crew — returned to the West End’s Vaudeville Theatre to shoot the film. Noted live event director Liz Clare joined the show’s directing pair Lucy Moss — who also co-wrote Six with Toby Marlow — and Jamie Armitage to helm the film.
Their first order of business: removing the theater’s seats. “They took out the seats to build a whole rig with a robocam,” recalls Maiya Quansah-Breed, who plays wife No. 6, Catherine Parr. They also filmed without audiences (and with pat-down breaks) for several days before inviting crowds in. “The last couple of days, they put out tickets for audience members, and they went like hotcakes,” remembers McIntosh.
With the seats reinstalled, they filmed the full show twice for a packed house, pausing in between songs to get shots of the audience reactions. “The audience was so behind us,” says Quansah-Breed. “That fed us even more performing, and you get to see that when you’re in the movie theater. You feel that energy on the screen.”
Even though Six has played thousands of performances around the world at this point, there are still theater lovers who haven’t got to experience the show in full until now. “I’ve spoken to people online who haven’t seen the show. They just tap into YouTube and Spotify to listen to the soundtrack,” notes McIntosh. “Now they can actually go.”
Natalie Paris — who plays wife No. 3, Jane Seymour — has performed in multiple productions of Six since its workshop days in 2017, which means she’s taken the stage more times than any other actor in the ensemble. So she knows just how important a filmed version of a show can be, especially to young theater kids.
“It actually makes my heart hurt,” she says. “I was that little girl that listened to the cast recordings. I wanted to be on stage, and now I’m that person to somebody else. I don’t take it lightly at all, especially for a show like this that means so much to so many people and broke the mold.”
And Six really does appeal to everyone. From its inception, the production has made a point of casting a diverse set of performers as Henry VII’s six wives. “It’s really is for everybody: age, creed, color, gender, you name it,” says Quansah-Breed. In addition to a racially diverse cast, Six has also featured non-binary and trans actors, including Dylan Mulvaney, who recently took on the role of Anne Boleyn on Broadway.
“It breaks all the traditional rules,” says McIntosh. “It’s groundbreaking. It’s revolutionary.” And starting on Aug. 14, it’s also in over 1,000 theaters nationwide.
