Anne Boleyn Role Outsourced to a Man in ‘Six’ as Dylan Mulvaney is Crowned

Anne Boleyn Role Outsourced to a Man in ‘Six’ as Dylan Mulvaney is Crowned

As a fan of the Tudor historical period, I often get fun facts from this era streaming on my Facebook feed.

Over the past few months, my page has featured the Broadway musical Six, which tells the story of the wives of King Henry VIII. I took a look at its woke cast choices and sensed the “girl power” vibe, giving it a hard pass. I also blocked the ad.

However, apparently, the directors wanted to be even edgier and more woke. Therefore, the production of this all‑female, feminist show crowned trans celebrity Dylan Mulvaney of the infamous Bud Light commercial as its next Queen Anne Boleyn.

Beginning on Feb. 16, the Broadway company will welcome two performers making their Broadway debuts. Dylan Mulvaney will step into the role of Anne Boleyn and Grammy Award winner Abigail Barlow will join the Queendom as Katherine Howard. They will be joined by returning cast members Adrianna Hicks as Catherine of Aragon, Olivia Donalson as Anna of Cleves and Anna Uzele as Catherine Parr. A replacement for Jane Seymour has not yet been announced. Current alternates Aryn Bohannon, Sierra Fermin, Nicole Kyoung-Mi Lambert and Aiyana Smash will also continue in their respective roles.

Mulvaney is a performer, writer and digital creator best known for her Off-Broadway solo show “The Least Problematic Woman in the World” and her viral TikTok series “Days of Girlhood.” She has appeared in concert and cabaret performances across the country and has released original music and comedy content online.

Dylan Mulvaney, the trans influencer, will now be playing Anne Boleyn, the 16th century British Queen.

Boleyn has also previously been portrayed as black.

There is no part of Western history or culture that progressives will not seek to defile. pic.twitter.com/EKPTA5bTo8

— Lauren Chen (@TheLaurenChen) January 18, 2026

Anne Boleyn is the dramatic center of stories about Henry VIII’s wives because her relationship with him drives the break from Rome, the birth of the Church of England, and the succession that leads to Elizabeth I. Her rise and fall, from captivating outsider to queen to executed “traitor”, gives productions a built‑in emotional arc and makes her one of the richest, most complex female roles in Tudor drama and musical theatre.

For these reasons, this role is an iconic showcase for women, especially in works like Six, which are explicitly marketed as women‑centered retellings of Henry’s wives reclaiming their own stories onstage. In that context, casting a man in the pivotal role of Anne Boleyn is both unjust and unreasonable, because it takes away a rare, career‑defining opportunity from a woman who has worked for years to reach Broadway and denies her a well‑earned chance to shine at the heart of the story.

Clearly, part of the trouble lies in the progressive swamping of our cultural institutions; no one in the decision matrix was challenged about the selection. The controversy left the production open to widespread mockery from many who might have been willing to see the musical if trans-acceptance hadn’t been so openly pushed.

The X-account for the musical was closed in the Category 5 comment storm.

Although @SixBroadway has closed down their account due to backlash after casting Dylan Mulvaney in the Broadway musical Six as Anne Boleyn, you can continue to tell them that giving women’s roles to men is unfair!

Women had to fight to participate in the theater. Like the vast… pic.twitter.com/OaHWxjjp5i

— Amy E. Sousa, MA Depth Psychology (@KnownHeretic) January 18, 2026

If those making the casting choices for “Six” had been smart, they would have looked at what happened after the 2021 Channel 5 miniseries Anne Boleyn, which cast Black British actress Jodie Turner‑Smith as Anne, which turned out to be an epic ratings failure.

For months, the UK red tops were full of the blind casting versus historical accuracy debate surrounding the new three-part drama Anne Boleyn (initially broadcast in the UK 1st-3rd June 2021 on free-to-air service Channel 5) and finally the figures are in.

…Ordinary viewers may have tweeted their willingness to give it a go, and their confusion by the historical inaccuracies, but in the end, the racy sex scenes and same-sex kiss between Turner-Smith’s Boleyn and Lola Petticrew’s Jane Seymour did not persuade viewers to actually tune in to the revisionist drama.

The Channel 5 and Sony-backed Fable Pictures co-production opened with just 774,000 viewers, despite all the publicity surrounding it, or just a 5.2 per cent audience share. These figures seem even worse when compared to the 2.19 million viewers (13.2 per cent) the far lower profile Our Yorkshire Vet gained in the same slot a week earlier.

No doubt established actor Turner-Smith will live to perform another day, but the question is whether newcomer-screenwriter Eve Hedderwick Turner will be able to attract any interest around her next project, which she told Radio Times might be the retelling of the story of Catherine Howard, another of Henry VIII’s doomed wives.

In the end, the lesson for Six’s producers may be as old as the Tudor monarchs themselves: the crown may glitter, but it sits only as long as the crowd approves. Theatre, like monarchy, survives on allegiance…and here, the audience is king.

By crowning a man as Queen in a show that built its brand on women reclaiming their stories, the producers may have staged the ultimate irony. Instead of rewriting history, they risk repeating it by beheading their own success.

As a palate cleanser, here is a bit from one of my favorite movies: Anne of the Thousand Days.

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