Constellation Stage and Screen will debut a new musical June 13 at the John Waldron Arts Center in Bloomington. “The King’s Wife” centers on Catherine of Aragon, the first of British ruler Henry VIII’s six wives. Tickets can be found on Constellation’s website. The musical will run until June 29, with shows on Wednesdays, Thursdays and weekends.
Before opening night, audiences have the chance to attend previews starting June 5 and be part of the work’s final development. Preview tickets are pay-what-you-will, though the lowest possible payment is five dollars.
Writer Mêlisa Annis said the previews will feature all the lighting, costuming and dancing of a full performance, but the actual script and the music aren’t final until opening night. The creative team will gauge which jokes land or flop and which scenes have the desired effect on the audience.
“The audience is the final ingredient in the development process,” Annis. “For each of those previews, then we will take our notes. And then we go back into rehearsal the next day and make changes.”
Annis said the musical’s creative team was drawn to Bloomington by Constellation’s practice of developing new theatrical works.
“It was one of those things where all of the pieces came together at the right place at the right time,” Annis said. “And at that place happened to be Bloomington, Indiana.”
IU junior and member of the ensemble cast Jonah Broscow said there have been daily adjustments during rehearsals.
“I'm just excited to see where the show goes,” Broscow said. “And I'm really excited for people to get to see it. And it feels exciting to be in the cast because you get to be able to put on something that all the writers of the show have been working on for so long, and seeing their hard work, getting to give them a stage for all of that work is a really cool opportunity.”
Annis said the writers focused on the “what ifs” of Catherine’s story, especially in the opening number, in which the king of Scotland attacks England.
“(We) continue asking the curious question of 'What if a woman was told that she's in charge, and then the Scottish army invaded the border? What would we do?’” Annis said. “So, we just put ourselves in her shoes at that time, with the rules of those people and that world on top of it.”
Broscow said the battle is one of his favorite moments in the musical.
“We have this really cool kind of choreographed dance fight number,” Broscow said. “We use kind of our hands and our bodies as weapons, but it's a super fun, upbeat and really cool dance moment.”
Another of the show’s “What if?” questions focuses on Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife. Broscow said the musical imagines the two queens as friends, rather than enemies.
To be able to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Boleyn, Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church and made England a Protestant country. Annis said “The King’s Wife” explores the impact of that event at the local level.
“In this moment, with him signing away the woman he was in love with — the woman that he married for 20 years — that was a radical act that changed the world,” Annis said. “And then what we see is all of these effects of these radical acts, how they affect all the women in the court.”
Annis’ decision to focus on the women of Tudor England, and Catherine especially, was intentional. She said she thinks Henry VIII’s first wife is often overlooked by history.
“In our show, one of the things that was very important to us is that our story is about the women that we never hear about, as opposed to the king that they share,” Annis said. “They get to take center stage and tell their own stories of power, ambition, sisterhood, heartbreak, hope — all of that sort of stuff.”
