Interview: Waltham Native Krystal Hernandez To Make Broadway Debut After Open Call Audition

Waltham native Krystal Hernandez made her Broadway debut on February 19, taking over the coveted role of Anna of Cleves, one of the wives of Henry VIII, in the New York production of the Tony Award-winning musical comedy “SIX,” now at the Lena Horne Theatre.

And while Anna of Cleves was queen, being one of the six wives of perhaps the most infamous king of England was no garden party. Indeed, it would be hard to find a single love match in this 16th-century royal family where Henry’s half-dozen queens – Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard, and Catherine Parr – are best remembered for their fates: respectively divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.

Fast forward to today, however, and female empowerment is front and center in the musical “SIX,” created by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss while the now Tony-winning pair were students at Cambridge University in England. These Tudor queens have been given a modern update and reimagined as a band of high-energy pop princesses modeled on everyone from Beyoncé, Britney Spears, and Adele to Avril Lavigne and Nicki Minaj – complete with fierce concert attire by Tony winner Gabriela Slade – and competing with each other for lead singer by proving to be the wife who fared the worst.

Anna of Cleves, the fourth of Henry’s wives, brings to the competition the fact that her marriage was likely unconsummated and ended after only six months, and that she would go on to outlive Henry’s other wives.

While Hernandez is now one of the six queens of Broadway’s “SIX,” she hasn’t forgotten being one of the 400 actors who lined up for a January 2023 open call for the musical held at Boston’s Huntington Theatre.

“For the first audition, they requested a pop/rock song, so I sang ‘Shout Out to My Ex’ by the British girl group Little Mix, which I had prepared as my audition song and which seemed appropriate for ‘SIX,’” explained Hernandez by telephone from New York recently. “They let us know that the second round would be the next day, when only 50 of us would be called back to do a song from the show. I sang ‘I Don’t Need Your Love,’ which is the Catherine Parr number.”

And while she came ready to slay, Hernandez – who memorably played two roles in the Huntington’s 2019 production of “Quixote Nuevo,” which marked her company debut – says she did not have her heart set on anything specific.

“I was completely open-minded – open to anything and any role. I went to that first Boston audition thinking, ‘I just want to be seen by Tara Rubin Casting (now the TRC Company),” recalls the performer. “After day two, they said ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’”

Four months passed, and Hernandez was in tech rehearsals for “In the Time of the Butterflies,” a stage adaptation of the Julia Alvarez novel of the same name, at Newton Theatre Company, when she got the call to come to New York.

“It was my third audition, this time for dance and so they could consider which queens we should play. They saw me for Anne Boleyn and Anna of Cleves.” says Hernandez. “One of the interesting things about all six roles in this show is that you have to know how to be a strong leading lady, and also a strong supporting player.”

And when it comes to landing a role in “SIX,” you also have to be flexible.

“There was a week of third-round auditions, when I was going back and forth to New York. I kept reminding myself, ‘It’s not a no until it’s a no.’ I was at the Elliot Norton Awards at the Huntington Theatre in May 2023, sitting mid-orchestra, when my phone buzzed. As quickly as I could get out of that row, I made my way to the lobby, where I heard the news that I was cast in the sit-down production of ‘SIX’ in Toronto. That run lasted eight months and gave me time to get to know the city, which is a very special place, not as hustly-bustly as New York.”

That doesn’t mean, though, that the 2013 graduate of Waltham High School and 2017 graduate of Salem State University doesn’t appreciate what it means to have a lead role in her first Broadway show.

“It’s extremely overwhelming and exciting for me to make it to Broadway,” says the proud Puerto Rican. “I love this show and the chance it gives me to play a real person from 500 years ago in a story that’s all about empowering women, and sing some really great music, including Anna’s song, ‘Get Down.’ And this is my first extended time in New York after seven years as a professional actor. It’s crazy how the universe places you right where you need to be.”

And, in Hernandez’s case, surrounds you with just the right company, too.

“Because of Toronto, my husband, who was my high school sweetheart, and I gave up our rental home in Massachusetts. So when we came back from Canada, we lived with my parents. Now we’re living in New York with our dog, Reina, a red poodle. We named her after the Red Queen,” says Hernandez. “Reina is wonderful and she’s doing great adjusting to her new life.”

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