Broadway star Samantha Pauly who plays Katherine Howard in Broadway's 'Six' joins Cheddar News to discuss the musical and what this role means to her.

Between Bells

Broadway Star Samantha Pauly Talks 'Six' And Making Her Broadway Debut

Welcome back Between Bells. What do you get when you combine a mega concert experience with England in the 15 hundreds pop concert featuring the ex wives of one of the most notorious ladies man in history, we're talking about Henry the eighth. The british musical comedy gives a modern peek into the story of the lives of the ex wives. As the queen's take turns belting their truth to see who suffered the most due to their toxic X and who should therefore become the group's lead singer. Here's a peek. He just the swans legit, I'm sure squeeze me. We are joined now by one of the ex wives broadway stars, Samantha pauly, Samantha. I saw six a few months ago, one of my favorite shows. I absolutely loved you, it was just amazing. The synopsis of the show is hilarious. We were all on the edge of our seats, were all dancing. What went through your mind when you first read the script and how did you prepare for this role? Um When I first, the first time I read the script was um when I had my first day of rehearsal actually, it's kind of typical that sometimes actors don't get their contracts or scripts until they all come together for the first day of work. Um but I had heard about the show ahead of time. I have had friends that knew the show reach out to me and say like this show is really for you, it's like a pop concert. People are belting their faces off, It's nice and short. I mean, you saw it, it's 80 minutes. Um and as soon as I listened to some of the music from it before I even auditioned, I agreed with them. I thought, wow, yeah, this is, This is really my jam, it's um it's empowering, it's exciting, it's fun and that the clip that you just played, that's the first time I've ever seen that really, I've never seen that clip of me before. That's so ironic because you've been, you've played this role for a while, you played Catherine in the North American tour, that was back in 2019, but this marks your Broadway debut. Tell me more about that. Yes. Um I never, in a million years did I think I would be originating a principal role in a broadway show. Um Six came to me at the time that I was ready to take a break from theater and maybe be done for a little while. Um and the first couple of times they asked me to come in and audition, I said no, I said no three times, wow. So I do want to talk about what you just said, because you posted on instagram a few weeks ago saying this quote three years ago, I decided I was done with theater for a while and I told myself if I needed to come to terms with the probability that I would never be on broadway Samantha here you are in one of the biggest hits of the year on, you know, on broadway, tell me about your career journey. Um so I only moved to new york city because six brought me here. Um I love new york, but I wanted to live in a city where I thought I had a better chance of working consistently. So before this, I lived in Chicago for seven years um and worked, like I said very regularly um in the city and I would come to new york sometimes for callbacks for things for other broadway shows and and tours and like I said, six just kind of came out of nowhere. I was ready to take a break and um six happened also at the same time that I got asked to audition for a revival of Evita on the West End in London and it was just a wild three weeks where I just kept saying to my friends like what is what is happening, like I got an email about six and I'm getting an email about this revival of a show that I also love, like it just, it just has really instilled in me what's meant for you will not pass you by and you're always exactly where you're meant to be in your journey and now I am, I am absolutely living my dream. I love that. Let's talk about the accolades. The show has received to Tony's eight nominations, what has been the most challenging part. I think the most challenging part, honestly, like you said, we've been a part of the show for a while this I've been a part of it now for three years. And uh we have had three of our original queens from when we started leave the show to go on to other projects. So I think that honestly has probably been the most difficult part because we all started this together and, you know, people get new projects and when it's time to go, it's time to go. So that that was probably one of the toughest days that we've had that. And maybe when we first started in Chicago, just learning the show and getting used to not leaving the stage and we're just going nonstop for 80 minutes. I know it's only 80 minutes, but it's it's a tough one. It's a marathon. Oh yeah, no, it is. I've seen it. You guys are non stop your singing or dancing. You guys look fabulous. My producer gave me a tidbit about your show, your show. A fact that when you guys were in previews, That's exactly when broadway shut down because of the pandemic around the same. I think it's the same day she mentioned. So what does it mean to have broadway back in full force? It's it makes me feel um it makes me feel back to normal. I mean, like uh like your producer mentioned, we broadway shut down on what was supposed to be our opening night. So we had been in previews for two or three weeks and I was actually, I was in a lift on my way back to my apartment to get my opening night outfit for like the red carpet, big party afterwards. And We've eventually all got an email saying, Hey, if you haven't come in yet and you're not heading to the theater, don't come in because everything's about to shut down. So it was a very long 18 months. It was, it was grueling and everyone, everybody went through a lot and everyone was so unsure when things were coming back. There are a lot of people, theater community that weren't sure if they wanted to do theater anymore. So when we finally started to hear whispers of, okay, we're thinking it might be this month. Okay, now we're definitely sure this is when we'll start rehearsals, okay, this is now we finally have a date um that when we we finally found out this is what will be when we will have our first preview again when broadway opens up. I was in my, I was in the parking lot of so I was back in Chicago and I was sitting in the parking lot about to go in somewhere and just had a full breakdown just sobbing in my car because it felt like such a relief, you know, we were all together every day, just about for a year and a half at that point. So it was it's been wonderful, wonderful to have audiences back. Yeah, it's wonderful to watch you and I'm so glad that you came on the show. Like I said, six is one of my favorite shows and talking to you. I think I might go see it again because I loved it. That much. Broadway star Samantha pauly. Thank you so much Samantha.