#Tsemaye Bob-Egbe

[aishabellasbigblogofeverything]

Okay if there's ever a Six movie then Halle Bailey should TOTES play Katherine Howard, okay, I called it!

I mean look at her can't you just see it?

She's perfect!

(also if I see any "she should play Aragon/Cleves/Parr" comments in the notes I'm eating your shoes.)

[appleflavoredkitkats]

watched six live and it inspired me to draw my favorite ones from back in the day :>

[paradise-bi-the-dashboard-lightt]

365 Days of Six Queens

↳ Day 197 → Tsemaye Bob-Egbe as Katherine Howard

[janedances]

remember when….

[six-costume-refs]

Hi! Do you know when and why Tsemaye got a wig change? Looking at her debut and last Megasix, the old wig has straight/wavy hair, while the newer one seems to be braided. Is it because her old one got damaged? Or did it just not look great?

Hey! Yes she got it when she came back from holiday in March. Her original looked great onstage but it doesn’t move like some of the other Howard wigs, so I think they wanted the braids for that movement! I love it, it’s definitely one of my favorite wig styles and glad we got to see it!

———————————

Top row: posted by @/thisistsemaye; Pamela Raith; @/snappy_six

Bottom row: posted by @thisistsemaye; @thisistsemaye; @/samuel_james_wigs_

[unwrittenemmy]

Day sixty-two of posting every six queen

DAY SIXTY-TWO - TSEMAYE BOB-EGBE - KATHERINE HOWARD

[redladydeath]

Non-standard Queen Hairstyles - Howard

Aimie Atkinson - UK Tour V1 & West End V1 Vicki Manser - West End V1 - Unknown photographer Samantha Pauly - Pre-Broadway Tour Courtney Mack - Pre-Broadway Tour Courtney Stapleton - West End V1 Mallory Maedke - Pre-Broadway Tour Collette Guitart - West End V1 & V2 - Photo by Shona Louise Harriet Watson - UK Tour V3 Zara MacIntosh - West End V2 Zara MacIntosh - West End V2 Tsemaye Bob-Egbe - West End V3 Rebecca Wickes - Bliss 2.0 & UK Tour V4 - Photo by Kayla Sinton Kim Ryeo-won - South Korean Production Heo Sol-ji - South Korean Production Lou Henry - UK Tour V5 Production Shots Lou Henry - UK Tour V5 Zara MacIntosh - West End V1 Emergency Cover

[jazzreloaded]

Play On! By Talawa Theatre @Belgrade Theatre 26 / 09/ 24

Review by Vidal Montgomery

The press night performance of Play On! - A Broadway Blues with a twist on "Twelfth Night" - was not undersold in terms of bums on seats ( because it was a full house, and based on this showing it deserves a full house everywhere it goes!), but in terms of spectacle; because for the near-three hours running time, it was thoroughly engaging, spectacularly entertaining and, despite dealing with some serious subject matters ( such as how a misogynistic Harlem resists change, made all the more relevant with the recent revelations around Music Moghul Sean Comb's recent indictment), it was joyful for the audience from start to end, evidenced by the raucous laughter, gasps and applause throughout.

The title "Play On!" may also refer to the four year development process to get a work of this magnitude and depth and craft and intimacy and nuance in front of a live audience; it is no mean feat that this splendid work of Ellingtonian excellence by Liam Godwin and Benjamin Burell is finally in front of an audience, and with a truly magnificent cast from top to bottom:

Although the dramaturgy obviously has its focal characters, the dancers / understudies / supporting cast acquit themselves equally well, and the audience is gifted with over a dozen amazing voices ( of which Lifford Shillingford was my personal favourite ), who perform comparably, shouldering the responsibility of energetic dance, tense drama and soulful song, and carrying the narrative along. This for me is the most captivating thing about this show. Tanya Edwards as Miss Mary and Llewellyn Jamal as Jester deliver stylish and soulful performances late on into the second act just I thought the show had probably reached its peak - boy was I wrong!

The core story of Play On! revolves around the day Duke Ellington loses his muse, and the lengths- and distance! - one lucky lady will go to to help him get it back; Earl Gregory, Koko Alexandra, Tsemaye Bob Egbe, and Cameron Bernard Jones play the four pillars of the love quadrangle that is "The Duke", his old flame ( lady Liv ) , his new muse ( Viola "Vyman" ) and Rev, the manager of the Cotton Club clutching at straws and clasping his hands in his hopes of keeping the four together as exemplars of Ellingtonian Excellence - and also keeping the show on the road...

Sadly the live band - directed by the unassuming Ashton Moore and delightfully driven by the delicate drumming of Empirical's own Shane Forbes - are not featured as characters in their own right - I am sure that later productions in the three month run will attend to this oversight.

Despite this, the mix of moods and blues and beats and grooves from the bandstand become the main character, and for me ( as a musician! ) this is the star of the show: Ellingtonian Classics like Mood Indigo, I got it Bad, It Don't mean a thing, Black Butterfly Rocks In My Bed and In a Mellow Tone are turned inside out and taken back from the trash heap of Abersold Appropriation,and are played in a way that suits the strengths of individual artists, and balances temperaments of their characters as a whole as they play moves towards reaches its climactic reveal; at this moment the only other disappointment was that the band was not as big as, say, the English Touring Opera's for the recent run of "The Rakes Progress" : With this amount of dramatic tension in the stage, and with the audience in the palm of the band's hands the Ellington Big band, really needs to be a BIG band.

As it was, on the night Kaz Hamilton and Alexander Polack acquited themselves very well, making a myriad of moods that were both historically authentic and stylistically de jour. And the commitment to shared seat of Chris Hyde / Josh Vadivello on Double bass ( NO electric big band era please! ) brings gravitas authenticity and sensuality to the greatest american songbook in a way that only a Double Bass can. This show is all about that bass!

Having recently sat through the often turgid and salacious KAOS, a reworking of the mythology of Orpheus and Euridice, ( which was not a patch on Marcel Camus Seminal 1950's classic ) and also attended the afforementioned reworking of Igor Stravinsky's "Rake's Progress" ( often not my sense of humour, albeit markedly less turgid and salacious than Charlie Covell's Netflix Production ) I was far from convinced that , per se, " A reworking of Twelfth Night " was going to as vivacious, contemporary , and nourishing to the soul as it turned out to be. But on this occasion I was rewarded for my bravery ( And by "bravery" I mean only braving the inclement British weather ) , and I will forever regard Play On! as somewhat of a late birthday present - ( or maybe early Christmas gift? )

Ironically, whilst sipping free Prosecco and listening to a(nother) jazz function band in the reception area after the show , I had the good fortune to speak with one the trustees of the Talawa Theatre and we discussed how important it may be to not label Play On! as ( simply ) a "jazz show", because of how many people may miss out on an amazing contemporary socially and culturally relevant human experience, simply because they do not know or have not yet been sold the depth and breadth of the jazz canon.

But Play On! is "Jazz Hands" in safe hands. And I can say with confidence that Talawa Theatre have a winner on their hands; it is Black Joy. And "Black Joy" may turn out to be a better euphemism for the vibrancy we expect "Jazz" to bring to us. Congratulations on the fully immersive experience that Director Michael Buffong brought to the Belgrade Theatre tonight.

PS: As with many theatre shows, the stupidly difficult train schedule doesn't really support the 2+ hour format, but I can only say that on this occasion it was worth missing our last train to catch the "A Train" one more time...

Talawa’s Black Joy season presents:

Play On!

A new Jazz musical

Based on Shakespeare’s

“Twelfth Night”

Conceived by Sheldon Epps

Book by Cheryl L.West

Music by Duke Ellington

Produced by Talawa Theatre Company and The Belgrade Theatre

Co-produced with Birmingham Hippodrome, Bristol Old Vic, Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and Wiltshire Creative

Artwork by Feast Creative

For the full programme, click or scan the image below:

[six-the-musical-international]

Variety in Katherine Howard’s hairstyle

1. Erin Palmer-Ramirez

2. Becca Wickes

3. Bryony Duncan

4. Lou Henry

5. Jodie Steele

6. Sophie Issacs

7. Vicki Manser

8. Tsemaye Bob-Egbe

9. Lou Henry

[sixthemusicalextras]

@/snappy_six on Instagram, 7 August 2022

[vaguelyominouscoconuts]

LOOK AT THE NEW WEST END CAST. LOOK AT THEM

ASIAN BOLEYN. BLACK SEYMOUR. BLACK HOWARD. IT'S A WONDERFUL DAY TO BE ALIVE, BITCHES

[aishabellasbigblogofeverything]

Totes agreed. I already told someone else but a lot of people treat her as if she's just a stereotype of the sassy Black woman or angry Black woman, even though her song is very righteously angry at Henry, and throughout the rest of the show, she is shown to be a very kind and forgiving woman, not to mention she's not at all sassy on her own or outside of her arguments with Anne Boleyn, in my honest opinion she's more portrayed as a funny, goofy character, who gets a lot of hilarious and witty quips. All the queens are funny to some extent but in my opinion Catherine of Aragon is the funniest. She's actually pretty lighthearted and seems like someone fun to be around, who is good for a laugh. And outside of that, she is, like you said, portrayed as proper, regal, and royal. Her character description even says that she "lights up the room".

And honestly, in my opinion, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard are both sassier and more aggressive than her. I mean Anne Boleyn's song is just as sassy as Catherine of Aragon's and she even insults Aragon in her song and constantly comes for her for no reason, while Aragon directs all of her anger at Henry(which is good foreshadowing of the end moral of the story, to not pit women against each other because of men). Katherine Howard's introduction involves her going around and roasting all of the other queens. While Catherine of Aragon's introduction is her complaining about her situation with Henry in a rather humorous fashion("I just don't think I'd look that good in a wimple!"). But no one calls Boleyn and Howard sassy nearly as much as they do Aragon. Is it because when white women are sassy it's cute and funny, but when Black women are sassy it's proof of our brash and indomitable nature? Or is it because white women are "allowed" to be sassy, since it isn't a stereotype associated with them and thus isn't a negative reflection of them as a group?

And, all right, Aragon is indeed a bold, fierce, and strong woman. But so are all the queens??? So why is that only held against her(or Cleves)? Why is it a stereotype when applied to her? Again, because anything white women do is cute, quirky, charming, and innocent. Anything Black women do is scorned or looked down upon.

And I do see some people say that Seymour and Howard being casted/seen as white the most as opposed to woc is problematic because they are the more feminine queens, which can send the message that white women are more feminine than their woc counterparts. And I do partially agree with this, as a Howard stan I would love to see a Black(particulary darkskin/brownskin) Howard(I recognize that we got one with Tsemaye Bob-Egbe, and I adore her! But as far as I'm concerned she's the only one! I need more! But to say that Aragon isn't also one of the more feminine queens is absurd and at this point I think if you ignore that to say that Seymour and Howard are the most feminine than you are just willfully being naive and ignorant(and perhaps racist as well). She has a very fancy and feminine outfit, wears an elegant tiara, and wears the most jewelry. Her personality is that of a firmly devoted wife, and a loving mother, and she's even portrayed as, like you said, a regal, dignified queen. So how is she not "feminine"? I think that this is just the masculinization of Black women striking again. Just because she is strong(like the other queens) doesn't mean that she's not feminine.

I'm not denying that there is racism in the casting, and more woc should be casted as Seymour and Howard, but to say that Catherine of Aragon being Black is problematic is just absurd(also she's based off of Beyonce, what's not to love about that?). There should definitely be more diversity but that doesn't mean that Aragon should be brought down. Most of these racist assumptions and portrayals are the result of the fandom's portrayals/depictions of the queens. Not the musical itself. I'm too tired of writing this to explain so I'll just drop this post right here since it goes into detail.

Anyway Catherine of Aragon deserves better from this fandom so y'al best respect her.

Thanks for listening and bye. 👋🏿

The queenly urge to write to someone about how, as much as I agree that Six the Musical should have more diverse casting choices for queens such as Jane Seymour and Katherine Howard, I would really like for people to stop saying that Catherine of Aragon--as a typically Black-casted queen--reinforces problematic stereotypes of Black women, because she really doesn't and most of those stereotypes come from the fandom's racism and not the show itself, but idk who to tell and doubt that anyone would listen to me, most sixcourse posts about racism in the casting and fandom are from like two years ago anyway. Reblog if you would listen. 👂🏿

[thewhizzyhead]

BITCHES WE FINALLY HAVE THE NEW WEST END CAST OF SIX

I REPEAT SIX HAS FINALLY ANNOUNCED THE NEW WEST END CAST AND YES THAT ALSO INCLUDES THE NEW ALTERNATES

[janedances]

unpopular or controversial theatre/performer opinions ?

Six WE 3.0 was a really talented cast and deserved better. Altogether, I can certainly see where the negative opinions come in which is fine, but individually they each bring something new to the stage. Amy’s riffs and presence onstage as Aragon, Amanda Boleyn was beautiful to watch and grow in confidence, and was ideal for many fan-fic depictions of Boleyn. Claudia portrays a beautiful Seymour, Dionne is so chill and cool as Cleves, Tsemaye’s acting is out of this world and I really like the vibe of Meesha, she’s a really good actress and her voice is quite relaxing actually. The alternates too!!

Esme and Rachel embody the word super swing, and are so beyond versatile. Paisley brings a fun yet chill vibe and my god is she a good Parr, Danielle’s energy is out of this world and Roxanne’s riffs are parr-fection.

Also, IDNYL in a lower key >>>

[six-costume-refs]

Do the Howard pony lengths vary?

Oh my god yes. Thank you for this ask, I’ve been dying to talk about this and never got around to making a post on my own.

Here are some examples of different lengths we’ve seen, just including first covers and principals:

Pictured: Vicki Manser (2019, West End); Jennifer Caldwell (2019, UK Tour); Chelsea Dawson (2021, Aus Tour); Mallory Maedke (2021, Broadway); Tsemaye Bob-Egbe (2022, West End); Aryn Bohannon (2022, Boleyn Tour)

I mean. SO much variation there. Vicki and Jen’s are both very short and very thinned out nearer the end, with Vicki in particular having some layering. Chelsea’s initial wig was very short and curled but also much fuller. Mallory and Tsemaye both have a middle ground in terms of length, but Tsemaye had the killer braids. And Aryn’s is very, very long and very full.

They’ve definitely been shifting towards the longer, fuller ponytails across the board, but there’s still variance in length/fullness/layering. Here’s most of the current Howard wigs:

Pictured: Koko Basigara (22-23 WE), Rachel Rawlinson (21-23 WE), Leah Vassell (22-23 WE), Lou Henry (23-24 UKT); Shakira Simpson (23-24 UKT), Zoe Jensen (22-23 Bway), Holli' Conway (22-23 Bway), Aubrey Matalon (22-23 Bway); Courtney Mack (23 Aragon Tour); Erin Palmer Ramirez (22-23 Aragon Tour), Aline Mayagoitia (22-23 Boleyn Tour), Aryn Bohannon (22-23 Boleyn Tour); Tay Pearlstein (22-23 Boleyn Tour), Sarah McFarlane (Breakaway 5.0), Artemis Chrisoulakis (Bliss 5.0), Jillian Worthing (Bliss 5.0)

West End still has the most variance. Rachel has a very short wig, more in the line of Jennifer Caldwell’s alt wig, which I suspect is partially for versatility since she also uses it for Parr. UKT is more standardized in length but all the Howards are new so all their wigs were presumably made together. NCL generally has fairly short ponytails, at least relative to current UK/US mainland productions! Many of them seem to have been reused a few times now too. US leans towards longer ponys, but of course there's still variation in length. See: Holli' vs Aryn.

[paradise-bi-the-dashboard-lightt]

hello! is it possible to get halloween icons of either danielle rose, tsemaye bob-egbe or amy di bartolomeo ?? (all six west end current cast) love all ur icons btw !!

Hey, I've made you one icon of each queen. I hope you like them, they are under the cut!