22 Things I Learned from Sam Pauly from Six on Broadway

All My Six Posts!
Over-Analyzing All the Historical References in Six- “Ex Wives,” “No Way,” “Don’t Lose Your Head” “Heart of Stone” “Haus of Holbein” “Get Down”
The Tudor Crown Inspiration in Six’s Logo; The Tudor Fashion Elements of the Costumes in Six (with Painting References)
Six the Musical Wives 1-3: Historical and Modern Costume Inspirations; Six the Musical Wives 4-6: Historical and Modern Costume Inspirations
The Ladies in Waiting of Six: Historical Inspirations and Costumes; Details from Six Costumer Gabriella Slade’s Instagram Takeover
The Early Costumes of Six the Musical: From Edinburgh to Cambridge to London
Updated Six the Musical Costumes for Broadway!; The Shoes of Six the Musical
The Alternate Costumes of Six the Musical; How the Six Alternates Change Their Styling for Each Queen
Virtual Dance Workshops and Q&As with Different Six Cast Members!

FYI: I will be attending dance workshops and Q&As with Natalie Pilkington and Grace Mouat this weekend, however, the blog posts covering these workshops will not be up until likely June 2nd or 3rd as I have a big writing application deadline on June 1 that I’ll be working on the majority of the weekend. Thank you for your patience!

On Monday, May 25 (Memorial Day here in the states), I took a virtual dance workshop and Q&A with Sam Pauly through Theatre Fan Workshops. Sam played Katherine Howard in Six on Broadway and also played her on the North American Tour, which went to Chicago, Illinois, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Edmonton, Canada, and St Paul, Minnesota. This was the first American and US based workshop I’ve taken, and it took place at 10 AM EST (where I’m based) instead of the 5 am or 7 am EST the other workshops I’ve done before. It was GLORIOUS. I got to sleep y’all! <3

Sam was really sweet and wonderful and encouraging. Her dog kept wandering in to show off one of his toys (lamb chop from lamb chop’s play-a-long, which was one of my favorite TV shows as a kid) and at one point, her husband also randomly came in and did the entire dance with her perfectly!

While she was teaching the dance, she advised everyone to “Channel your inner whatever you want – you’re the baddest b in the castle. I wish y’all could see our choreographer do it sometime, she’s a hip hop aficionado and she’s insane.” She also suggested that everyone do some little character show: “What queen are you? it doesn’t have to be Cleves – everyday for me it changes.”

Don’t forget, Sam’s been doing a “song a day” challenge on her Instagram throughout all this self-isolation - she’s on day 72 + now!

Sam Pauly AND HER SWEET DOG RIGHT THERE IN THE BACKGROUND

On how she keeps her dyed pink hair looking so good - I only wash it once a week or nine days. I have a deep conditioner that I use when I DO wash it, and that deep conditioner has the actual neon hair dye in it.
Audition process for Six in the US - I would venture to guess that [the audition process for Six] is probably the same in the US as it is in the UK, but it was a lot different than auditions in the US nromally are. For final callbacks we wer ein Chicago, there were people from Chicago, New York, and Canada. It was a full 8 hour day.
We danced at the beginning of the day - we did three different dance combinations, including Get Down and Freakum Dress by Beyonce.
They went in queen order - every time they would start a new queen, they would bring everybody in at one point, everybody that was up for Boleyn, etc. We’d go through it and then we all would sit there and watch each other sing. I have Never done that in my life.
Toby and Lucy [Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, the writers of the show] do that becaus ethe whole show is about queens supporting queens. They wante dto see how people treated each other, who supported each other and who got along with who and who meshed well with each other.
It wa sa very long day - 8 hours. and then after that I went on a plane to New York to audition for Evita.
It was very chill. And [Toby and Lucy] are also very young, and they were very supportive. They were just having the best time watching everyone sing. In Chicago, I missed the first two round and then they went in for final callbacks in Chicago and FINAL final callbacks with everybody. I don’t know how many rounds they did.
Funniest onstage mishap - Happened during our second to last show in Minnesota. It didn’t happen to me, it happened to us collectively. One of Andrea’s buns started to come out of its little stud thing but she didn’t know it; it was kind of flopping around like a dog ear, so all of us were trying not to laugh at her. At one point when Anna was beginning to sing, I tried to silently ask her about - ‘ do you want some bobby pins’ and she handed me a water bottle. By the time we got to “Six,” everybody was quavering “for five more minutes” and everybody was laughing so hard none of us got it. I was still singing out, but I was crying so hard from laughing, just tears streaming down. Nobody was singing because everybody was laughing so hard. That was after we’d been going for so long though that even our stage manager was like [shoulder shrug].
Audition Tips - My two biggest ones are: Always walk into the room thinking that the people on the other side of the table need you far more than you need them. It’s great to have a job and it’s really great to book a show, but those people - the director and the choreographer and the producers - they all want you so badly to be what they’re looking for, because then their job is done. If you can walk in there with that confidence, it makes everything so much easier. Also - Dress for the part you want. It doesn’t mean come in a full costume, but if the character is a little sexy, go ahead and dress that way. If it’s a business type, cater to that. I feel like a lot of people go into an audition and dress in a very neutral way, but i’m like, ‘this is rock of ages, put on some jean shorts and fish nets.’
Dance Training Tips - Find a modern and jazz class. Between that and ballet, that would hit everything that would typically be in a dance class. Take a tap class if you like (I don’t like it), but I’d do like a beginner level of like anything you can find. You can get the core and the basics from a ballet class but Musical Theater is changing. There’s a lot of hip hop, a lot more modern stuff- there’s a lot more stff that never used to be in MT. Start with the basics in a ballet and a jazz class and then do a lot of other stuff that yo u might not try normally.
Best memory with the Six cast - Probably the first day we got to the Broadway theater. We have a lot of great memories, as we’ve done a lot of great things together. But that first day of being in the theater and being in our dressing rooms - that’s the first time we all collectively got to like cry and be totally mind blown that we’re there.
The Queen she initially aimed for in auditions: I honestly thought I had the best chance at Seymour because it’s kind of a park and bark where you can just stand and sing, but the more I started to work on the K Howard material, I realized - this is it, this is the one – so once I figured that out, I went for K Howard at callbacks.
Favorite moment in the show - Ex wives at the very top, when it starts ‘tonight we are’ – and we start singing and the lights come up. To see the look on everyone’s faces when that happens is usually a collective [MOUTH OPEN]. For me, that is what always motivates me, because my favorite thing is and always will, be the fans. I love meeting people at the stage door, having people send fan emails. If I’m not feeling well, those are the things I think about. Somebody has waited months or a year to see this show tonight, so I’m going to go out there and give them what they’re waiting for.
Healthy Voice recommendations - I don’t have any fancy tricks – some people swear by teas or lozenges or whatever. I am a classic ‘as much sleep as you can get and as much water as you can possibly drink.’ And even if you think you’e had enough water, you probably haven’t had enough water. That’s my two biggest tips – when I don’t get enough sleep, I can always tell. And you have to say no to a lot of things – parties, get togethers – because you have to get as much sleep - but it’s worth it.

Sam Pauly’s imitation of the audience’s faces when the music starts and the lights come up at the beginning of the show.

11. On people criticizing Six for having the actors perform in their natural accents - My thought is the same as the though as toby and lucy – whether or not you have an accent, it does not affect how the story is told. If we were really being true to each character, cleves would be speaking and singing with a german accent, aragon with Spanish accent. It always is interesting to me when people get mad about not speaking with British accents. For me, I don’t really care – I get what people say when they’re like – they sound so cool with the accents - a year ago when we were preparing we were all like ‘do we think they’re going to maeke us do the british accents?’ …but honestly I think we would ha.ve butchered them so I think it’s honestly best that we don’t do them anyway.

12. Biggest Takeaway from being involved in Six - Just surprising myself with what I can do. We all sing in every song, no one has a break and still being able to do all that dancing – that’s probably been my biggest takeaway so far.

13. Broadway vs. West End (she performed on the West End with Evita)- Broadway might be a little bit more of an excitement to it just because that’s always been my dream. Last year if you had asked me, ‘Do you think you’d ever do anything on the west end'?’ – I would have been like – ‘no why would I, why would I ever go there, who would hire me to go to London?’ To say I’ve done both is wonderful!

14. How she almost performed last minute in the West End - I was in London for rehearsals for Evita. I had already gone to sleep – and Kenny [show producer Kenny Wax] texted me this big long thing, ‘We have a lot of injuries and illnesses right now – I’l talk to director at regents park – can you come in and do the 4 or 7 pm show tomorrow?’ I talked to my agent and the company manager – because I was hired to go over there to do Evita and nothing else and Jamie Lloyd our director was like, ‘as long as you can do rehearsal on Monday, sure.’ It was a lot of back and forth with Kenny and my agent. I had packed up all my things – they said ‘we’re going to find some costume for you to wear,’ I had literally walked up to the train station and about to get on train there, when I got the call and was told to go home. Because I was on there on a government visa – if I had gone to work somewhere else and made money doing it – I could have gotten in a lot of trouble and regents park and theatre arts [where six was ] could as well. So they said don’t come. They ended up cancelling one of those shows for the day. I was SO CLOSE and I was so excited. Now after seeing it there, I ‘m glad I didn’t go on, because the stage is a lot smaller than what we have, so I would have been flailing it all around. I would have stuck out like a sore thumb for sure.

15. How she found out Six was going to Broadway - I remember it, but it’s kind of like my wedding day. I remember it happening, but I don’t really remember a lot about it. We were at intermission of one of our previews , and I had had a text and a missed call from my agent, saying ‘give me a call when you can.’ He kept it very casual – and that’s what kind of took me by surprise. He’s like ‘I know you’re busy. Do you want to go to Broadway with six?” – and I was like – ‘whatttttt?’ My response was “they picked me??” and he was like “yeah, yeah, they picked you.’ My roommate figured out what was going on and they filmed it – my husband was there and I got to share that with him that night – it was so special.

16. How she found out about Broadway closing on the day Six was supposed to officially open- I had just had brunch with my family and my in-laws and some friends that I had scheduled. I was in a lyft on my way back to my apartment, I dropped my sister off at the mac store so she could get her makeup done, and the playbill article [announcing that broadway was closing] came out, but that said by 5 pm on the 13th and I though okay – we’ll have the party and one performance and then close. Our producers were still in a meeting with the league and that’s why it took us so long to figure out what happened. My agent called me before that; two of them had flown in to see it and he called me and told me they said the show was cancelled and wouldn’t let him pick up his tickets.

17. On Doing Evita - Working with Jamie Lloyd –don’t tell anyone but he might be my favorite director I’ve ever worked with. He is so capable of getting me to do things I didn’t think I could do. He is able to pull that out of you – and this particular production was different than any that had ever been done. It was very dirty and messy. I got the opportunity to be ugly and scream and cry – and with a lot of those things, I was able to come back to six and use that.

Sam Pauly and her husband, who after initially saying he didn’t want everyone to know who he was, agreeably popped out and did the entire Get Down dance with Sam perfectly.

18. Favorite song to perform in the show - ex wives for sure – it’s just the most exciting – the adrenaline rush we need to get into the rest of the show

19. how she heard about six – a friend from London called me and told me it was coming to Chicago

20. can people in the US audition for the west end and vice versa? - There’s a rule between the actors association in the US. At any time, an equal number of people have to be working in the opposite places. If there’s five people from the US working on the west end, there have to be five people from the UK on Broadway. It can’t be an uneven worker count. So when we went to UK for Evita – they were able to hire three people from London for Broadway – that solely depends in the unions

21. Favorite costume in the show - Aragon, it’s the heaviest, and I know it’s the hardest to put on, it takes like two people to put it on her, but it’s my favorite

22. Have you ever dropped a mic on stage? - I have not – knock on wood. In the year I have been with the show – I have only seen it happen in performance one time – maybe it happened other times and i just missed it – but I only saw it once.

22. Thoughts on the rules banning of the megasix on Broadway - we all fought for it. It’s not up to the producer or the director or anybody, it’s up to the actor’s union. We were able to do it everywhere else, and we all wish it was allowed. It’s one of my favorite parts of six and we were all really disappointed when we got the no, but it was because there was some stuff going on with Moulin Rouge. They were in the middle of issues with people filming the end of their show, so Actor’s Equity was like, ‘We can’t say yes to you guys and then say no to another show.’ So I don’t know if anything will change, when we come back – but people still film it – because everybody is on their feet and it’s a lot harder for the ushers to run around to see who is even filming – so technically you’re not supposed to, people still do – I really wish it was allowed.