Six women who were once reduced to footnotes in a king's marital history are grabbing the microphone again at Baltimore's Hippodrome Theatre. SIX, the pop-concert musical that retells the lives of King Henry VIII's wives, returns to the historic downtown venue with an entirely new touring cast stepping into the roles of Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr.
According to CBS News Baltimore, the show is scheduled to run from October 25 through November 1, 2026, marking the musical's first Baltimore engagement since it last played the Hippodrome in 2023. The new cast's first performances are set to take their bows October 25 at the Hippodrome, as reported by Playbill. A separate ticketing listing from Event Tickets Center shows a performance scheduled for October 30 at 8 p.m., though it was not independently confirmed as an official primary-market listing.
Leading the new ensemble are Christina Jones as Catherine of Aragon, Brittany Smithson as Anne Boleyn, Melina Savannah Cruz as Jane Seymour, Shelby Griswold as Anna of Cleves, Thabitha Moruthane as Katherine Howard and Nina Anne Nelson as Catherine Parr, per the same Playbill report. Alternates Brooke Aneece Dismuke, Anna Hertel, Carlina Parker and Abigail Sparrow round out the touring company.
A Girl Group Born From Royal Rivalry
SIX reimagines Henry VIII's six wives as a girl group staging a contest to determine who suffered most under their shared husband, with the winner becoming the group's leader, according to CBS News Baltimore. The cast describes the show as being about empowerment and each queen owning her story. Thabitha Moruthane, who plays Katherine Howard, told the station that the queens' lives are centered around Henry and that the show lets them tell the world who they are.
Nina Ann Nelson, who takes on Catherine Parr, described the show as a 90-minute marathon and said she loves performing it, according to the CBS Baltimore report. She also said the cast has fun performing together from start to finish. That runtime description contrasts with an earlier characterization from BroadwayWorld, which called the production an 80-minute concert format complete with hand-held mics during its prior Hippodrome run.
From Edinburgh Fringe Project to Broadway Powerhouse
Written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, SIX features an all-female cast backed by an all-female band known as the Ladies in Waiting, according to BroadwayWorld's tour page. The musical has built a substantial awards résumé since its rise, earning eight Tony nominations in 2022 and winning Best Original Score and Best Costume Design of a Musical that year, per Playbill.
The show frames its creative mission around reclaiming identity, with BroadwayWorld noting that the wives of Henry VIII take the mic to reclaim their identities out of the shadow of their infamous spouse. Between its Aragon and Boleyn touring companies, SIX has now played more than 2,000 performances across North America, with Playbill putting the figure at 2,023 performances to date.
Baltimore Fits Into a Sprawling National Tour
The Hippodrome run is part of a touring route that CBS News Baltimore reports includes stops in Detroit, Michigan, and San Francisco, California. The tour schedule includes Indiana University Auditorium in Bloomington, Indiana, and Kansas City Music Hall. Another venue, Uihlein Hall at the Marcus Performing Arts Center, appears on a tour listing from Broadway.org.
Christina Jones, Brittany Smithson and Melina Savannah Cruz have also led the cast for a separate engagement of the show in Wilmington, according to BroadwayWorld's show page, underscoring how widely this touring company has been deployed across the country this season. For Baltimore audiences, the Hippodrome Theatre at 12 North Eutaw Street offers a limited eight-performance window to catch the new lineup of queens before the production moves on to its next stop.
