Former Fort St. John resident in Canadian production of SIX The Musical

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — A former Fort St. John resident will be in the Canadian production of SIX The Musical in Toronto for over a year.

Elysia Cruz will be portraying Katherine Howard in the musical until the production finishes next year.

Cruz was born and raised in the Philippines before her entire family moved to Fort St. John when she was nine.

She stayed in Fort St. John until she graduated in 2019 and immediately started at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, looking to gain a  bachelor of music theatre performance degree.

Cruz said she’s been singing since childhood in the Philippines.

“It’s a huge part of Filipino culture to sing karaoke. I always say that I am karaoke trained since I was young,” she said.

Despite this, Cruz had no formal singing, acting and dancing training until she attended Sheridan College.

While finishing the four-year program, she began to audition for the musical with Mirvish, a Canadian theatre production company, which she said was a weeks-long process.

“We had initial auditions, then we had to wait for callbacks, and callbacks took four days,” Cruz explained.

“It kept everybody on their toes because we kept being called. Some people were called every day, and I was personally only asked to come twice.”

Eventually, Cruz received the part for the musical focusing on the six wives of Henry VIII.

“It’s a reclaiming of these women’s stories and telling their side of the story,” Cruz said.

“I think history had a very misogynistic lens to it, and in this day and age, doing a show like this that uplifts all the women in the world, it’s something new. And it’s something that’s really fun.”

The show introduces the audience to six queens, and they call the audience the seventh queen.

“We engage with the audience. This musical breaks the fourth wall, and we encourage audiences to engage with us,” Cruz said.

Cruz plays King Henry VIII’s fifth wife, Katherine Howard.

“She is the youngest one of the bunch, and her story is quite heartbreaking. It really puts things in perspective,” Cruz said.

“I think her story, back in the day, could be seen as something taboo. She was seen as someone who slept around and got what she deserved.”

Katherine Howard was beheaded for adultery in 1542 when she was 18. She was married to King Henry VIII for a year before her arrest and execution.

“We realized that she was taken advantage of by the powerful men around her. She was young,” Cruz said.

“The Katherine Howard song holds the audience accountable. She’s very complicated, and she’s a lot of fun.”

For character work, she and her co-actresses had to watch documentaries and read about the queens they would be portraying.

Because SIX The Musical is her first show, she said she was nervous and a little unsure of how she would handle it.

“But I’m very grateful for the creative team and my cast members who were very welcoming and very open,” Cruz said. 

“And I’m loving the support from my Fort St. John theatre community and mentors — I hold them close and dear to my heart.”

She’s also grateful for all the connections she made at the beginning of her career and is still learning as much as possible.

SIX The Musical had a short showing in Edmonton, and starting September 28th, the show will been in Toronto at the Royal Alexandra Theatre. The crew performs eight shows weekly, only taking a day off on Mondays.

Tickets can be purchased on Mirvish’s website.