Growing up in South Bend, Indiana, Sara Gammage was no stranger to the stage but didn’t carry the dream of many a young actor.
“It was a hobby, and I enjoyed it,” she says, “but I didn’t really think it would be my career as an adult.”
Instead, thoughts of a life in the theatrical world started after she tried her hand at working backstage for a community theater production. She enjoyed it, and chose to pursue it as a career at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. (Fun fact: Gammage later earned a master of library and information science from Kent State University, taking the courses online from Chicago over a five-year period.)
Now, she’s the stage manager for a tour of the award-winning musical “SIX,” an energetic show told from the perspectives of the wives of Henry VIII that’s about to begin a five-week run at Playhouse Square in Cleveland to wrap up the arts organization’s 2022-23 KeyBank Broadway Series.
The show’s development traces to 2017, when Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss started writing it as students at Cambridge University, according to a news release from Playhouse Square. Co-directed by Moss and Jamie Armitage and boasting choreography by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille, the show earned 23 awards in the 2021-22 Broadway season, including the Tony Award for Best Original Score and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical.
Among its tours are two traveling North America; first came the “Aragon” tour, which was followed by the “Boleyn” tour, the one bound for Cleveland.
The Boleyn cast is led by, of course, SIX performers: Gerianne Pérez, as Catherine of Aragon; Zan Berube, as Anne Boleyn; Amina Faye, as Jane Seymour; Terica Marie, as Anne of Cleves; Aline Mayagoitia, as Katherine Howard; and Sydney Parra, as Catherine Parr.
On the phone recently from the production’s stop in Greenville, South Carolina, Gammage joined the show after a lengthy stint with a production of “Hamilton” in Chicago and Los Angeles that was set to launch before the pandemic all but halted live theater.
She’s been with the “Boleyn” tour since its onset in July 2022.
“Stage managers can be with a show from before rehearsals to the closing performance, and I really enjoy seeing a process from the very beginning,” Gammage says. “And I think it (requires) a nice skillset. There’s a lot of organization and management, and you’re connecting with all the different departments and working with a lot of different people.”
Stage managers tend to describe the gig as demanding but also exhilarating, one requiring near-endless problem-solving, and Gammage echoes those ideas.
“Stage managers are leading the charge backstage and coordinating with all departments to keep the show up and running,” she says. “(They’re) maintaining the artistic vision of a show once the creatives leave — once the director and choreographer are gone. They’re making sure the show runs smoothly, so we’re kind of the essential hub of information and communication.”
And the little fires everywhere?
“It’s live theater, so the sound system may not work or mics don’t function,” she says. “So it’s in the moment trying to — as swiftly as you can — working with all the other departments to fix the problem and not stop the show.
“Once we get started, the goal is that you don’t have to stop the show — and if there’s a problem that we can fix it as smoothly as possible, as quickly as possible, so the audience doesn’t notice.”
If you want a sense of “SIX” before experiencing it at Playhouse Square, one option is the traditional cast studio recording, released in 2018. However, a better sense of the show’s energy may be obtained from spinning 2022’s “SIX: Live on Opening Night (Original Broadway Cast Recording,” which, according to the news release from Playhouse Square, debuted atop the Billboard cast album charts and surpassed 6 million streams in its first month.
“(Audiences) are in for a really fun time,” Gammage says. “It’s like going to a concert — SIX wives of Henry VIII telling their stories in their own words and their own songs.
“It’s just really, really fun. It’s really well-written. The lights are beautiful. The songs are amazing. All the actors are wonderful.”
And she makes sure we know the show is decidedly on the short side, getting you in and out in about an hour and 20 minutes.
“It’s high-intensity — like a HIIT workout. It’s 80 minutes of nonstop action, nonstop singing. It’s short, but there’s a lot there.”
Including a message for females, the release calling the transformation of the lead characters from “Tudor queens to pop icons” a “euphoric celebration of 21st-century girl power.”
“The show just gives voice to the woman who goes unheard,” she says. “Even though you thought you knew them because of their husband, they are their own people. They have their own stories. And (they’re) important stories to tell.”
‘SIX’
When: Aug. 8 through Sept. 10.
Where: Playhouse Square’s Connor Palace, 1615 Euclid Ave., Cleveland.
Tickets: $35 to $120.
Info: PlayhouseSquare.org or 216-241-6000.
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