Behind the Curtain: Where the Broadway Queens of Six Went to School

Catherine of Aragon is the first queen in Six's running order, the one who walks on at the top of the show and never breaks eye contact. Her number is "No Way," the opening solo where Henry's first wife refuses to be moved off her throne, and it sets the vocal bar for everyone who follows: gospel-rooted power, a controlled belt, and the authority to lead the line.

Five performers have led Catherine of Aragon on Broadway, and the training behind them runs from a standalone School of Musical Theatre at the University of Oklahoma through BFA programs at the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and Montclair State University, to a principal who came up entirely outside a college theatre credential. Two of the five arrived by way of the North American tour, and the original, Adrianna Hicks, has returned to the gold dress twice more across five years.

Six on Broadway began with a queen who first wore Catherine of Aragon's gold at a pre-Broadway tryout, and who would keep coming back to the role for years afterward. Adrianna Hicks originated the Broadway Aragon in the 2020 previews, carried it through the reopening, and has since returned twice more.

Adrianna Hicks (Original Broadway Catherine of Aragon)

Hicks grew up in McKinney, Texas, and trained at the University of Oklahoma's Weitzenhoffer School of Musical Theatre, the only standalone School of Musical Theatre in the country, graduating in 2011 with a BFA in Musical Theatre. She made her Broadway debut in 2015 as a swing in the revival of The Color Purple, later playing Celie, and appeared in the Broadway company of Aladdin in 2017.

She originated Catherine of Aragon in the North American premiere of Six at Chicago Shakespeare Theater in May 2019 and carried the role into the Broadway company, opening the show in the February 13, 2020 previews that were cut short by the March 12, 2020 shutdown. She returned when previews resumed on September 17, 2021 and played through August 2022, then made two later limited returns to the role, in late 2024 into early 2025 and again from February 2026, five years after originating it. After Six she starred as Sugar in Some Like It Hot on Broadway and won a 2024 Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album for that cast recording. She also shared the 2022 Drama Desk Ensemble Award with her original Six Broadway castmates.

When Adrianna Hicks finished her original run in August 2022, the Aragon crown passed to a performer who had already shared a Broadway stage with her years earlier.

Bre Jackson (Catherine of Aragon, August 2022 to December 2022)

Jackson grew up singing in gospel choirs and trained at the University of Michigan's School of Music, Theatre and Dance, earning a BFA in 2012. Her early Broadway work included a female swing track in The Book of Mormon, and she appeared in the 2015 to 2017 Broadway company of The Color Purple alongside Adrianna Hicks.

She joined the Broadway company of Six as Catherine of Aragon on August 9, 2022, succeeding Hicks as part of a replacement group that also brought Brennyn Lark and Keri Rene Fuller into the cast. She played her final Broadway performance in the role on December 4, 2022, when Hailee Kaleem Wright took over Aragon the following night. Six was her only engagement with the production; she did not originate the role on tour.

The December 2022 full-cast refresh brought a new set of queens to the Lena Horne Theatre, led at Aragon by a performer who had already originated the role on the road.

Hailee Kaleem Wright (Catherine of Aragon, December 2022 to December 2023)

Wright was born in Houston and raised in Tennessee. She came up outside a traditional college theatre track, and no college or conservatory credential is documented. Her pre-Six credits include her Broadway debut in Paradise Square, the national tour of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, and The Black Clown at A.R.T. and Lincoln Center.

She originated Catherine of Aragon on the North American tour before joining the Broadway company, where she stepped into the role on December 5, 2022 in the full-cast refresh alongside Taylor Iman Jones and Leandra Ellis-Gaston. She played her final Broadway performance as Aragon on December 3, 2023, after which Khaila Wilcoxon took over the role.

The next Aragon came up through Wisconsin and arrived on Broadway the same way Hailee Kaleem Wright had: by originating the role on the North American tour first.

Khaila Wilcoxon (Catherine of Aragon, December 2023 to November 2024)

Wilcoxon is from Kenosha, Wisconsin, a 2014 Indian Trail High School graduate who pivoted from basketball to musical theatre before training at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, earning a BFA in Musical Theatre in 2018. Her other Broadway credits include Hadestown at the Walter Kerr Theatre, where she performed in the ensemble as a swing and understudied Eurydice and the Fates.

She originated Catherine of Aragon on the North American tour, then transferred with that company to Broadway as the contracted principal beginning December 5, 2023. She played her final performance of that run on November 24, 2024, handing the role back to returning original Adrianna Hicks. She is announced to return to the Broadway Aragon on May 18, 2026 for a limited engagement, succeeding Hicks once more.

When Adrianna Hicks's second return ended in early 2025, the role passed to a recent Montclair State graduate leading a brand-new group of queens.

Najah Hetsberger (Catherine of Aragon, February 2025 to February 2026)

Hetsberger graduated from Montclair State University with a BFA in Musical Theatre in 2021. She made her Broadway debut in & Juliet at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre in early 2024 before joining Six, with additional credits including the Ain't Too Proud national tour and an Off-Broadway Little Shop of Horrors.

She joined the Broadway company of Six as Catherine of Aragon on February 19, 2025, leading a new cast that included Gianna Yanelli, Kelsie Watts, Krystal Hernandez, Kay Sibal, and Taylor Marie Daniel. She played her final Broadway performance as Aragon on February 15, 2026, when original queen Adrianna Hicks returned to the role the next night. Six was a Broadway-only principal run for her; she did not originate Aragon on tour.

Catherine of Aragon opens the show, so her covers have to be ready to set the tone cold. Like the other queens, she is covered on Broadway by alternates, standbys, and universal alternates rather than a hidden ensemble, most of them carrying three or four queens at once. The table below lists the Broadway performers documented as covering Aragon, with the training behind them.

The Aragon alternate roster mirrors the principal line's range of training routes. Nicole Kyoung-Mi Lambert came through a music degree at Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts, Marilyn Caserta trained at the conservatory-style Atlantic Acting School, and Holli' Conway and Kristina Leopold both arrived through university programs (Northwestern State and Vanguard). Across principals and covers alike, Catherine of Aragon's Broadway history runs from standalone musical theatre schools and flagship-university BFAs to conservatory diplomas and careers built entirely outside the college pipeline.

Six on Broadway began with a queen who first put on the green sash in 2019, before opening night was even a concept. Andrea Macasaet originated Anne Boleyn at Chicago Shakespeare Theater that May and carried the role through the North American premiere tryouts. She walked into the Brooks Atkinson for the first Broadway preview on February 13, 2020, was still under contract eighteen months later when previews resumed, and finally opened the show on October 3, 2021.

When Macasaet finished her run in December 2022, the show needed a Boleyn who could carry the role for a full year without ramping into it. They cast Leandra Ellis-Gaston, who had already debuted on Broadway in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.

Storm Lever had already been a Broadway Six queen-in-waiting for a while when she finally got the green sash. She originated Anne Boleyn on the North American Aragon tour in 2022, then moved with the rest of that tour cast onto Broadway the following year.

By the time Gianna Yanelli took over Anne Boleyn in early 2025, the role had been a Broadway fixture for nearly four years. She kept it for almost as long as the original.

For the spring 2026 stretch, the green sash belongs to Dylan Mulvaney, a CCM graduate whose audience size grew several orders of magnitude between drama school and Broadway.

The sixth Broadway Anne Boleyn takes over on June 1, 2026. Of the six, she is the only one whose performing arts training did not end in a credential.

Six the Musical does not use a traditional ensemble-to-understudy setup for the queens. The Broadway production lists standbys/alternates who cover defined groups of queens and go on when coverage is needed. They are part of the show's design, and the original Broadway alternates appeared on the opening-night cast recording's bonus track.

Eleven Broadway alternates/standbys are documented as having performed Anne Boleyn between September 2021 and May 2026. Most cover three queens; a few are designated "universal alternates" who cover four or more.

The training pipeline behind the alternate roster looks a lot like the principal roster: Cincinnati CCM, Point Park, Boston Conservatory, Columbia College Chicago, and Belmont all show up. The most striking overlap: alternate Jenny Mollet and spring 2026 principal Dylan Mulvaney are both CCM Musical Theatre class of 2019, classmates who eventually shared the same green sash on the same Broadway stage. Two alternates went a non-BFA route through music programs (Nicole Kyoung-Mi Lambert in Music Education at Roosevelt's CCPA, Ayla Ciccone-Burton at Goldsmiths and University College Cork), two trained through professional conservatories outside the degree system (Marilyn Caserta at the Atlantic Acting School, Cassie Silva straight from a professional career that started at age five), and one paired a Spelman BA with years of training at Ballethnic Academy and Alvin Ailey.

Jane Seymour is the third queen in Six's running order, the one who steps to the front for "Heart of Stone," the show's lone power ballad and its emotional center of gravity. After the comedy and competitive edge of the first two numbers, the role has to land a sustained, controlled belt and hold the room still.

Across the Broadway run and announced 2026 casting, five actors have held principal Jane Seymour, from the original, Abby Mueller, through Keri Rene Fuller, Bella Coppola, Jasmine Forsberg (who left in January 2025 and returns February 16, 2026), and Kelsie Watts. The training behind them is unusually varied: an acting degree from Indiana, BFA Musical Theatre programs at Texas State and Penn State, a conservatory-track BM in Music Theatre from Baldwin Wallace, and a commercial-voice degree from Belmont belonging to a performer who reached Broadway by way of pop releases and The Voice.

Six on Broadway gave its first "Heart of Stone" to a performer already steeped in big-belt leading roles. Abby Mueller joined the original company directly, never coming up through a tour, and held the role through the shutdown and the long reopening.

Abby Mueller (Original Broadway Jane Seymour)

Mueller, from the Chicago area, trained as an actor at Indiana University, where she earned a degree in acting. She is the older sister of Tony winner Jessie Mueller, and both sisters have played Carole King in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Abby on the show's first national tour after appearing in the Broadway company. Her Broadway debut came in Kinky Boots in 2013 as a swing and understudy.

She originated Jane Seymour in the Broadway company of Six, joining directly for the production that began previews February 13, 2020 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. The run was interrupted by the March 12, 2020 industry shutdown; previews resumed September 17, 2021 and the show officially opened October 3, 2021. Keri Rene Fuller covered a spring 2022 medical leave beginning March 14, after which Mueller returned and gave her final performance on August 7, 2022. After Six she performed in the Broadway & Vine concert series and made her solo concert debut at 54 Below in 2024.

When Mueller stepped away in summer 2022, the role passed to a performer who had already covered it once. Keri Rene Fuller had filled in during Mueller's spring medical leave before returning as the contracted principal Jane Seymour.

Keri Rene Fuller (Jane Seymour, August 2022 to December 2022)

Fuller is an Oklahoma City native who attended the Classen School of Advanced Studies before earning a BM in Music Theatre from Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio in 2015. Her credits include the national tour of Cats as Grizabella and a cover of Jenna in Waitress; she came to Jane Seymour directly on Broadway, not by way of a tour.

She first joined Six in spring 2022, covering Mueller's medical leave beginning March 14, then took over as the contracted principal on August 9, 2022. She played her final performance on December 4, 2022 as part of the late-2022 full-cast refresh. After Six she joined Wicked on Broadway as an Elphaba standby before moving into the role full time.

The December 2022 cast refresh brought a Broadway debut to the role. Bella Coppola stepped in as principal Jane Seymour for a full year at the Lena Horne Theatre.

Bella Coppola (Jane Seymour, December 2022 to December 2023)

Coppola, from Sacramento, California, earned a BFA in Musical Theatre from Texas State University. Six was her Broadway debut, and she came directly to the Broadway company rather than through a North American tour; her earlier credits include Pat in the Off-Broadway production of Kinky Boots, and she is also a singer-songwriter.

She began performances as Jane Seymour on December 5, 2022 and played her final Broadway performance on December 3, 2023. After Six she originated the role of Chloe in the Broadway production of Smash and reprised Jane Seymour for a brief stint in the Canadian production of Six.

The next Jane Seymour arrived from the road. Jasmine Forsberg originated the role on the first national tour before joining the Broadway company, and she is the only principal Jane so far announced to return for a second Broadway stint.

Jasmine Forsberg (Jane Seymour, December 2023 to January 2025; returning February 16, 2026)

Forsberg grew up in Orlando, Florida, where she attended Timber Creek High School, and earned a BFA in Musical Theatre from Penn State University in 2021. She originated Jane Seymour on the first national tour of Six before transferring to Broadway, and made her Broadway debut in the all-Filipino company of Here Lies Love in summer 2023.

She began her first Broadway run as Jane Seymour on December 5, 2023 and played the role into January 2025. Between Six stints she appeared in Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends in Los Angeles and on Broadway. She was announced to return to Jane Seymour on Broadway beginning February 16, 2026, taking over from Kelsie Watts.

For the year between Forsberg's two runs, the role went to a performer who reached Broadway through pop. Kelsie Watts built a recording and social-media career before Six became her Broadway debut.

Kelsie Watts (Jane Seymour, February 2025 to February 2026)

Watts is a Lubbock, Texas native who graduated from Belmont University in Nashville in 2015 with a degree in commercial voice, where she performed in the pop-rock ensemble Phoenix. Before theatre she built a career as a pop and recording artist and social-media performer, and appeared on NBC's The Voice. Six was her Broadway debut; she did not originate the role on a tour.

She joined the February 2025 cast refresh, beginning performances on February 19, 2025, and played her final performance as Jane Seymour on February 15, 2026, with Jasmine Forsberg returning the next day. She then moved to Moulin Rouge! The Musical on Broadway in the lead role of Satine, beginning in spring 2026.

"Heart of Stone" is the number an alternate most has to be ready to carry alone, so Jane Seymour's covers tend to be the company's most assured belters. As with the other queens, the role is covered by alternates, standbys, and universal alternates, most of them spanning three or four queens. The list also includes Kelly Denice Taylor, who made her Broadway debut going on as Jane Seymour in July 2022. The table below collects the Broadway performers documented as covering Jane Seymour, with the training behind them.

The Jane Seymour alternate roster echoes the principal one: BFA Musical Theatre programs at Columbia College Chicago, Cincinnati CCM, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Pace, and Penn State all appear, alongside a UK conservatory route through Mountview. Universal alternate Wesley Carpenter and principal Kelsie Watts both passed through Belmont, and most of these performers carried Jane Seymour inside a defined three- or four-queen track rather than the role alone.

Fourth in the running order comes Anna of Cleves, the queen Henry annulled almost as soon as he met her, and who gets the last laugh in "Get Down," the swaggering, palace-flexing anthem of a woman who walked away with a castle and her freedom. On Broadway the role has belonged to a tight line of four principals, each handed the crown in the show's signature Monday cast change.

The training behind these runs from a New York conservatory through BFA tracks in music theatre and acting, with stops at Elon, Ithaca, and Salem State. Three of the four originated Anna somewhere else first, at the Chicago pre-Broadway tryout, on the North American tour, and in the Canadian company, before bringing her to New York.

The original Broadway Anna set the template for the role's cool, unbothered confidence.

Brittney Mack (Original Broadway Anna of Cleves)

Mack grew up in Chicago, Illinois, studied at the Chicago Academy for the Arts, and trained at AMDA (the American Musical and Dramatic Academy) before beginning her career with Chicago Shakespeare Theater. She first played Anna of Cleves in the Chicago Shakespeare pre-Broadway tryout of Six, which opened in May 2019, then carried the role to her Broadway debut.

She was in the first Broadway preview on February 13, 2020, before the March 2020 shutdown, returned when previews resumed September 17, 2021, and played the official opening on October 3, 2021. Her final Broadway performance came December 4, 2022, in the show's first full-cast refresh. A Grammy nominee as part of the Six: Live on Opening Night cast recording and a 2022 Drama League Distinguished Performance Award nominee, she was also among the Six company honored with the 2022 Drama Desk Ensemble Award. After Six she returned to Chicago to star as Celie in The Color Purple at the Goodman Theatre.

The first replacement came to Anna straight from a string of Broadway ensembles.

Nasia Thomas (Anna of Cleves, December 2022 to December 2023)

Born in Queens and raised in Virginia, Thomas attended the Governor's School for the Arts in Norfolk before earning a BFA in Music Theatre from Elon University in 2015. She made her Broadway debut in 2016 as Little Eva in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, and her Broadway credits also include the Caroline, or Change revival and Ain't Too Proud before Six.

She took over Anna of Cleves on December 5, 2022, succeeding originator Brittney Mack in the production's first full-cast refresh, and came to the role directly as a Broadway replacement rather than from a tour. Her final performance was December 3, 2023, when the Aragon national tour queens reprised their roles on Broadway. After Six, she was announced as a standby in Broadway's The Last Five Years.

The next Anna brought the role home to Broadway after originating it on the road, and is the only Cleves so far to return for a second stint.

Olivia Donalson (Anna of Cleves, December 2023 to February 2025; returns February 2026)

From Jacksonville, Florida, Donalson earned a BFA in Musical Theatre from Ithaca College in 2015. She originated Anna of Cleves on the North American first national "Aragon" tour of Six before bringing the role to Broadway.

She joined the Broadway company as Anna of Cleves on December 5, 2023, when the tour queens reprised their roles, succeeding Nasia Thomas, and played her final performance of that run on February 17, 2025. She was in the original ensemble of Dolly: A True Original Musical at its 2025 Nashville world premiere, and returned to Anna of Cleves on Broadway beginning February 16, 2026.

The most recent Anna landed the part the hard way, through an open call.

Krystal Hernandez (Anna of Cleves, February 2025 to February 2026)

A Waltham, Massachusetts native of Puerto Rican heritage, Hernandez earned a BFA in Acting from Salem State University in 2017 and built a career as a Boston-area regional performer, including the Huntington Theatre Company's Quixote Nuevo. She played Anna of Cleves in the Canadian company of Six before her Broadway debut.

She made that debut as Anna of Cleves on February 19, 2025, booked from an open-call audition she has said she attended by calling out sick from her day job, succeeding Olivia Donalson. She played the role through mid-February 2026, when Donalson returned to it.

Anna of Cleves shares her covers with the rest of the company's alternates and universal alternates, who carry her inside three- and four-queen tracks rather than as a dedicated understudy. The table below lists the Broadway performers documented as covering Anna of Cleves, with the training behind them.

The Cleves coverage roster spans the same range as the rest of Six: a music-education degree at Roosevelt's Chicago College of Performing Arts (Nicole Kyoung-Mi Lambert), BFA Musical Theatre programs at Point Park, Belmont, and Montclair State, a UK-trained route, and the conservatory-style Atlantic Acting School. Many of these performers also cover Aragon, Boleyn, Howard, or Parr, which is part of why Six asks its alternates to carry such different swaggers and vocal colors from one queen to the next.

Katherine Howard is the fifth queen in Six's running order, the one who turns a bubblegum-pop hook into the show's sharpest tonal pivot. On Broadway, the principal Howard line is shorter than Boleyn's but just as useful for training research: Viterbo, SIU, AMDA, UCLA, and a songwriter-performer route that started outside the college theatre pipeline.

The role has moved from Samantha Pauly's original Broadway performance to Zoe Jensen, Didi Romero, Kay Sibal, and Abigail Barlow. Barlow is the unusual case: she entered Six history first as one of the show's high-profile musical descendants, a Grammy-winning creator of The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical, then joined the Broadway company as Katherine Howard in 2026.

Pauly gave Broadway its first Katherine Howard, carrying the role from the 2020 previews into the reopened production and through the original cast's final performance on December 4, 2022.

Jensen took over Howard when the original Broadway cast handed over its crowns in December 2022, bringing a resume that already crossed Hamilton, Wicked, and major commercial musical theatre worlds.

Romero joined the Broadway company in December 2023, stepping into a cast change that also brought several new queens to the Lena Horne Theatre.

Sibal arrived on Broadway in February 2025 after a public-facing pop-vocal boost from The Voice, where her run gave audiences a preview of the clean, flexible contemporary sound Six prizes.

Barlow is the most unusual Howard in the Broadway line so far because she entered musical theatre history before entering a Broadway cast.

Six's Broadway coverage system is part of the show's identity. Instead of a large ensemble with hidden understudies, the production uses alternates, standbys, swings, and universal alternates who are publicly credited and often have defined queen tracks. Official casting announcements do not always publish the exact cover track, so this table uses the strongest public role documentation available and keeps broader universal-backup notes separate from confirmed principal runs.

The backup list makes the Howard pipeline wider than a principal-only table suggests. Columbia College Chicago, Pace, Belmont, Boston Conservatory, Montclair State, and Northwestern State all appear through alternates and standbys, and several Howard covers also appear elsewhere in the Six ecosystem as Boleyn, Seymour, Parr, or universal backups. For students studying this casting history, that matters: the same performer may need to carry very different vocal colors, movement profiles, and comic timing across multiple queens.

Catherine Parr is the sixth and final queen in Six's running order, the one who refuses to keep competing and turns "I Don't Need Your Love" into the number that breaks the contest open. On Broadway, the principal Parr line is the only one that loops back on itself: Anna Uzele originated the blue queen, five performers followed, and Uzele returned to the role in February 2026.

The training behind those six runs from a Texas State BFA to AMDA (twice), a single conservatory semester at A.C.T., a Berklee music degree, and a University of Michigan BFA. For the principal Parrs, plus the Broadway alternates, standbys, and backups documented as covering the role, here is where they studied.

Six on Broadway has had a Catherine Parr from the very first preview, and she is the only principal queen so far to come back to the role. Anna Uzele originated the blue queen in 2020 and returned to her in 2026.

When Anna Uzele first stepped away in spring 2022, the role went to a performer making her Broadway debut.

The next Catherine Parr had already made her Broadway debut years earlier, straight out of conservatory and into a revival.

By the end of 2022 the blue costume went to a performer with the longest stage resume of the group so far.

The next Parr arrived on Broadway having already played the role across the country.

The most recent Catherine Parr before Anna Uzele's return carried the role for a full year.

Like the other queens, Catherine Parr is covered on Broadway by alternates, standbys, and universal alternates rather than a hidden ensemble. Most of them cover three or four queens at once, so the same performer might sing Parr's blue-lit ballad one night and a very different queen's number the next. The table below lists the Broadway performers documented as covering Catherine Parr, with the training behind them.

The Parr coverage roster leans on the same programs as the principals and the other queens: Columbia College Chicago, Belmont, Point Park, and Penn State all appear, alongside UK conservatoires and New York acting studios. Several of these performers also cover Boleyn, Howard, Seymour, or Cleves, which is part of why Six asks its alternates to carry such different vocal colors and comic timing from one queen to the next.

Across all six tracks, the principal roster touches standalone musical theatre schools, flagship-university BFAs, conservatories, music degrees, arts high school training, and self-built pop careers. stageready profiles many of the college programs represented in this article, including the ones behind the three queens completed here: the University of Oklahoma and University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Montclair State, Penn State, Baldwin Wallace, Belmont, Elon, and Ithaca College, alongside the AMDA and Texas State programs that turn up across multiple queens. Training that does not map to a stageready program card, such as arts high school routes, single-semester conservatory stints, and the acting-focused degrees behind Abby Mueller (Indiana) and Krystal Hernandez (Salem State), stays in the performer profiles above.

That completes the set: all six queens of Six, from Catherine of Aragon to Catherine Parr, and the Broadway performers who have carried each crown. Their training runs the full range of how musical theatre artists reach a Broadway stage, from standalone BFA conservatories and flagship-university programs to music degrees, arts high schools, the North American tours, and careers built entirely outside the college pipeline.

If any of the programs above belongs on your own audition list, the schools with stageready profiles can be saved to your list for side-by-side comparison.

Photo credits: Andrea Macasaet by Joan Marcus. Leandra Ellis-Gaston by Joan Marcus. Storm Lever via Instagram (@stormlever). Gianna Yanelli by Joan Marcus. Dylan Mulvaney by Shawn Salley. Kirstin Maldonado courtesy of Boneau/Bryan-Brown. Samantha Pauly, Zoe Jensen, Kay Sibal, and Abigail Barlow by Joan Marcus. Didi Romero by Michaelah Reynolds. Anna Uzele by Rebecca J. Michelson. Joy Woods by Michaelah Reynolds. Taylor Iman Jones by Daniel Rader. Gabriela Carrillo by Joan Marcus. Taylor Marie Daniel by Jennifer Broski (BroadwayWorld). Brennyn Lark via Six on Broadway.