No theater show since “Hamilton” has had as much buzz and exploded onto the world stage as much as “SIX.”

The story of the six wives of Henry VIII, reframed as a modern singing competition where all six try to outdo each other both in vocal prowess and in how much ye olde English king abused them (“divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”) has sprinted from its debut at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival to London’s West End, Broadway (where it was set to premiere 90 minutes before COVID-19 lockdowns), the South Pacific, a U.S. tour, and even to sea aboard Norwegian Cruise Lines.

Written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss while the two were still students at University of Cambridge, “SIX” won the 2022 Tonys for Best Original Score and Best Costume Design. It’s a short play at 85 minutes without an intermission, taking place on a stage fit for “American Idol.” All but one of the songs—each queen has one lead—are performed in the styles of today’s biggest pop stars. In chronological order, they are: Beyonce and Shakira for Catherine of Aragon, Lily Allen and Avril Lavigne for Anne Boleyn, Adele and Sia for Jane Seymour, Nicki Minaj and Rihanna for Anna of Cleaves, Ariana Grande and Britney Spears for Katherine Howard, and Alicia Keys and Emeli Sande for Catherine Parr.

The other song, “Haus of Holbein,” is perhaps the show’s biggest highlight, a Berlin-meets-Bavaria rave that went viral on TikTok.

Actress Jasmine Forsberg, who plays Jane Seymour, explained that for this song, the cast members drop their queen identities and become another character—each company has a unique one—named “Sabine.”

“Once the sunglasses and ruff go on, we are no longer Jane Seymour, Catherine of Aragon,” she said. “It’s very fun to try and channel that different energy; that prim, proper, better than you, yet always down to rave and party every single night.”

The queens are backed on stage by a talented band called the Ladies in Waiting that plays every song live, which is not the norm in theater. “SIX” takes liberties with the ending, but the show is both a history lesson and a lesson in sisterhood for both audiences and the casts.

“SIX” is now nearing the end of its run in San Francisco, where it’s playing to a sold-out Orpheum Theatre.

It’s Forsberg’s most significant role since graduating from Penn State University in 2021. The Filipino American and Orlando native, who has acted off Broadway and in regional theater companies, auditioned that summer.

“Dream come true territory! But when I say I worked for it, oh, let me tell you!” Forsberg said.

Auditions included numerous callbacks to New York for Forsberg, who was working in Connecticut at the time. For a long time, she was in the running for three other queens before she was switched at the very end.

“But living in this role for the last year, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that this was the right path that could have been chosen for me,” she said. “It is so fun playing that role night after night.”

In what ways is being on tour different from your other acting work that you’ve done up until this point?

Jasmine Forsberg: I’ve never been a part of a production with a group that is predominantly women. It is a majority of women in this ensemble, both on stage—I mean, the Ladies in Waiting is an all-female band—but also backstage. Our audio engineers are women. It is incredible to me to be surrounded by so much girl power. … All of the six queens are People of Color, and so, to not only tell the story about female empowerment, but also tell it alongside six women of color—up until recent years on Broadway and in theater, the spotlight hasn’t necessarily been on those people. It’s amazing to be able to take up that space and tell this story feeling so energized by the other people that are in the company around me. It’s very uplifting. What you see on stage is a fraction of the support that we encounter on a daily basis just as a company, period.

How does the cast balance the importance of the history with putting on an entertaining play night after night?

Jasmine Forsberg: As a cast, we have to give credit where credit’s due, and just shout out the creators of the show, Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow, who, when they created the show, infused so much history. If you’re seeing it for the first time around, going in blind to the show, it’s amazing how entertaining the show is. But if you see it a second and third and a fourth time, you’ll be able to actually pick up on how much history is actually infused into every single song.

The first one that’s coming to mind is the Catherine Parr song, “I Don’t Need Your Love.” “Remember that I was a writer/ I wrote books and psalms and meditations.” I mean, that line is two measures, and yet it speaks volumes to how Catherine Parr was incredibly smart as a queen and as a woman of her time. She was very well educated. Even in songs like “Don’t Lose Ur Head,” which from the outside view, might just be a cute little, like, bubblegum pop Avril Lavigne, punk-rock-type tune. Yet if you were to actually read the lyrics, there’s so much history infused in that three-minute song right there. Lucy and Toby gave us this gift of having the history just be the show.

Luckily, with our characterizations in the way that we get to interpret the songs, we can modernize it as much as we want. But the foundation is history. It is this modern retelling of these six ex-wives.

Speaking of the two of them… There are multiple productions worldwide at this point. There’s even productions at sea. Do the creators meet each cast? Do they have any one-on-one contact with you guys or wish you luck? Do they give you any pointers?

Jasmine Forsberg: Toby was at our very first rehearsal as a company where we did this: It’s apparently SIX tradition that everybody does a read-through of the entire script, and when I say everybody, I mean everybody sings every song. It’s kind of like a great singalong to get a vibe going because in the show, the vibe and the communal aspect of the show is really important, and the energy between the six queens.

Toby and Lucy also rejoined us in New Haven, Conn., where we teched the show … right before we moved our tour to Chicago to start previews. We had a lovely sit-down chat. We did a run through for them on stage in full tech, full makeup, costumes, everything. And afterwards, we had a note session, and they gave us so many different points to work with, which was an amazing launchpad for us because we have just gotten different perspectives from our creative team that we worked with for the four, five, six weeks of rehearsal.

It was amazing to hear a little bit of a different perspective, to hear truly what they thought when they wrote this show. We were so encouraged to make the show our own, and so in many ways, they celebrated that we made the show our own, but also were able to encourage us to hone in on certain moments just so we made sure that every company across “SIX, the Musical”—West End, New Zealand, Australia, our show—the message is still the same.

As for the musical inspirations for each of the queens: I presume that Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss came up with those. Did you and the other actors in your company come up with your own inspirations, too?

Jasmine Forsberg: Our company has definitely taken the ball that we were given, and then we ran with it all the way over here. For Jane Seymour, Adele and Sia are listed as the pop inspirations for [“Heart of Stone”]. But I also love to kind of embody a little bit of of Kelly Clarkson while I’m singing. I think about little 9-year-old Jasmine belting out “Because of You.” You get to the big bridge, when she’s like, “For the same damn thing!” It just reminds me of the climax of “Heart of Stone” in a little bit of a way. … When you live with a project for over a year—it’s almost a year exactly to performances in about a week or so—it’s amazing how the show ebbs and flows and evolves. … And now it’s living more in a different sphere and also making it my own, too, because I like to think that I could be a pop star one day, too.

You started out with an interest in music.

Jasmine Forsberg: Honestly, it all kind of worked in tandem. I grew up taking piano and voice lessons and dance classes, and then it was only a matter of time before musical theater just became part of that. Because of that musical background from when I was a kid playing guitar and playing piano, essentially, you just become creative, and you start writing songs, writing music, and I’ve never pursued that fully, professionally, like done the whole pop star sensation thing.

It is a passion of mine for sure. … I have my guitar with me. … But one of the requirements of the show is that you have to keep your nails a certain way, and so playing guitar, when I have my nails a certain way, it’s interesting. It’s an interesting dynamic of, “How do I continue to fuel my artistry and passion while also still fueling the show’s artistry and whatnot.” You have to bring so much of yourself to the show. All this to say, I do love writing my own music—shout out to the guitar! … I filmed a Hallmark movie a couple of years ago, and my character was a singer-songwriter. They actually used one of my original songs, so that was really neat.

The music in “SIX,” is it 100-percent live?

Jasmine Forsberg: Yes. Actually, let me caveat that. We have a click track that we use. All of the artists on stage, including musicians, wear in-ear monitors. That adds some electronic elements to the show. The live band is absolutely playing everything that you’re hearing. We are singing everything that you’re hearing. However, all of the lighting elements are specific to timestamps in the click track. … That’s a way for all of the cues to make sure that they happen because they’re so matched to the beat of the music. … [This happens most] in “The One You’ve Been Waiting For,” which is the little interlude song that introduces Anne Boleyn’s character.

You don’t get to see that very often in your line of work.

Jasmine Forsberg: Our Ladies in Waiting, our band, is incredible. … Sometimes I get blown away by this company of people because we’ve been singing the same songs and playing the same tunes every day for the last year, and when you hear them do something that’s completely different … it’s like, “Whoa!” We don’t just do musical theater. We also sing jazz, and we sing hard rock and all these things. So it’s cool.

How fun is it to perform “Haus of Holbein” every night? It’s such a show highlight.

Jasmine Forsberg: “Haus of Holbein” is a literal rave on stage every single night. Each song, choreographically even, has very specific elements that it draws from in pop culture in society. Our choreographer Carrie-Anne [Ingrouille], in our rehearsal process, showed us a video of essentially this rave that was going on in broad daylight, and people were doing full-on dance. This is what the rave elements of “Haus of Holbein” are based on. …

All six of you switch dialects there. Is that hard? Is that easy?

Jasmine Forsberg: It’s taken us a lot of practice. … We had to have little coachings with our music team to try and get all of the vowel and consonant placement correct, because it is different. We’re trying to make it as authentic as possible, even if it’s a funny bit, because we want to do it justice. Opening night being in San Francisco, somebody who was from Germany came up to me, and he was like, “That song was my favorite, and you guys did it justice.” And I’m like. “Yes!” We love to hear it.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.