Interview: Gabriela Carrillo of SIX at Orpheum Theater

BroadwayWorld in Omaha had a chance to sit down with one of the reigning queens of the highly anticipated national touring production of Six, Gabriela Carrillo, for an in-depth discussion about life, theater, and the smash hit musical that is making waves wherever it plays.

Thank you for taking the time to speak with BroadwayWorld in Omaha!

Of course.

Was music a big part of your life growing up? When did you catch the theater bug?

Music was a huge part of my upbringing. Neither of my parents are professional musicians and I don't really have any professional musicians in my family, but my brother is an actor and my late uncle is an actor on my father's side, so I guess the artistic bone kind of runs in the family. But yeah... I grew up in a house full of music. My dad is from Mexico and would play music in Spanish. I grew up listening to salsa and mariachi music, and folk music from the 70s. My parents loved folk music and Americana. I was always encouraged and drawn to music and the arts. My parents were very encouraging. I had a wonderful upbringing where if I showed a passion for something, it was supported. I tried a lot of things in my childhood like soccer, swimming, Japanese painting, and violin. Certain things I fell away from because I wasn't actually interested once I tried them, but other things stuck with me. I started my first instrument, violin, when I was three. I started playing piano at eight and then guitar later. I always loved music, but at age 8 I saw a community theater audition announcement for Annie and I wanted to audition because that was one of my favorite movies ever as a child. My parents took me to the audition, and I wanted it so bad. I didn't want just any role though... I wanted Annie. I guess my father spoke to my mother that night when they were in bed and he said he don't know if this production of Annie was going to hire a little Mexican girl to play Annie. He just didn't want me to be disappointed. He didn't know what they're looking for, but he knew that I might not be it. And I understand he was trying to protect me from people possibly not seeing me in roles like that. But anyway... I got Annie! That theater company, Music On Stage in Palatine Illinois, was great! Once I got Annie I continued to do shows with them and other community theater companies in my hometown.

Tell me a little about your journey to finding your place in the musical theater world.

In high school I continued with theater, and in college I studied music. I went to Berklee College of Music in Boston to study vocal performance and songwriting, and I minored in drama. So I did a little bit of everything. At that time I really wanted to be a pop star. That was my dream. I really wanted to be a mega pop star and tour all over the world with songs that I wrote. I moved to LA to pursue that dream after college, and after I started getting involved in the pop scene there were just a lot of things that I felt frustrated by and felt went against my morals. I was asked to do certain things by lawyers or managers that felt like it was going against my artistic integrity just to get famous or get attention. It was a culture of just trying to go viral, and that was tiring for me. It really took the creativity and the joy out being an artist, and I had to step back. Theater was always there for me. I was initially doing it as a security thing cause I wasn't making a lot of money as a pop artist, but theater was there and I was booking theater and it was fun for me. And then I realized that this was working for me and wondered why I was not leaning into that. I realized I was so happy when I was doing theater and I was not happy when people were trying to tell me how to go viral. So I just started committing myself more and more to theater. I got an agent and I got serious about it a new way as an adult. That's when all the wonderful opportunities started coming my way, and that's when Six came my way. It felt like perfect timing and the show feels perfect for me because I get to live my pop star dreams but I also get to be doing theater and living my dream of traveling and singing to audiences across the country. The show was an answer to my prayers in a way that feels healthy and feeds my artistic spirit but doesn't crush me as an artist. I love that.

You continue to release your own music under the name Gabriela Francesca. Can you tell me a little about the similarities and differences between the creative process involved in songwriting and the approach you take in creating a character in the theatrical world?

You know... It's kind of similar. I would not bring a lot of my personal stuff on stage in the moment (in a theater production) because I think that would be not relevant to the character, but there's a way where you can use emotions that you may be feeling in your personal life or things that you've gone through throughout the day and you can use that to propel you. I wouldn't be using that character for my own personal catharsis. I am trying to tell the story as best I can being that character. With songwriting I also can't sit down in the moment where I am suffering or joyful or excited or confused or whatever and write a song in that moment. It kind of has to do sit in my body and soul for a while, and sometimes it will be years before I can write about something that really hit me. But when it comes to that time where I can finally write about that break up or relationship to a family member that's hard for me to talk about, I do get into character in a sense in the studio. I have to put my mind in that space, which is where being an actor comes in, because I know how to put my mind in a certain space in a moment and when I'm done, I'm done. I'm not carrying it with me out of the studio or out on stage. So that's kind of my process as a songwriter in any songwriting session I've gone into, which is why I feel lucky that I am not just doing the pop music machine thing. I think in that case you're writing every day all day and you've got to write something even if you don't feel like you have anything to write about in that moment. I think that can be an interesting muscle to flex, but I also think it inhibits my genuine creativity because it's almost like I'm forcing it. So yeah, I like to get myself into character, and it usually takes me a while to write about things that are important to me or have really impacted me. But when they finally come out I'm usually really proud of them.

Can you tell me about your audition experience for Six?

It was a long, long audition process. It was the longest I've ever been through for anything, but definitely worth it. I want to say I first auditioned back In January 2020. I was asked to send in a tape of myself singing two different pop songs that showed off my voice, so I did that and sent in my tape and got a callback. I was asked to sing and read for Catherine of Aragon, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr. So that was really fun. I put those on tape and I was really excited. This little voice in me was like, "This is your job. This is what you've been waiting for." Just a month or two before I had been in final auditions for a different show in New York for a national tour that I thought for sure that was my thing, and it didn't happen for me. I was just so bummed by that, but I picked myself up as you have to do in this industry. So when Six came along I was like, "Oh it's this! This is the job!" I was sure of it. I was nervous but I also almost felt like this job just had to be mine. I did a zoom session with the team, which was really great and I felt like I was really being considered for the tour, and I just could not believe it. Then Covid hit and everything shut down, including auditions and casting in the industry. I would say I thought about this job every day, and I hoped that when theater came back that this job be there and that I would still be a good fit for it and that they would call me. It really was one of those light at the end of the tunnel things for me, but I was just hoping for so bad. And turns out that as the industry slowly started to come back, they contacted me again and asked if I was still interested. So I went to an audition in Chicago, and then I went to do my final audition in New York. It was a couple days or callbacks with like 50 or 60 women all auditioning for different queens, all dancing singing acting in front of people who were going for the same role as me and auditioning in front of them. It was a whirlwind and definitely overwhelming. I really had to have a lot of personal strength and just kind of keep my headphones in and just sit in the corner in my own world because it's easy to get caught up in that energy from everyone else. We all wanted the jobs so bad. I just tried to keep my head down and focus on what I was there for and trust in my own ability and talent, and trust that little gut feeling that this was the job for me. So after the New York auditions I waited I think five weeks to hear anything. My agent kept checking in. I had to be approved by the US producers and the team in the UK, and it was a whole process. They really took time to put together this group and they did a fantastic job and I think anybody who sees the show will just see how well we work together. But that was torture waiting for that answer. But then I got it on November 21, 2021. I got the call on the closing night of another show I was doing and it just felt very serendipitous. But yeah, that was a long process.

Anything that surprised you about the show/experience with Six?

For me, being someone who grew up performing and doing music, and this being my first touring Broadway show, I was used to not having frequent challenges in my art. I would go into jobs and know I was killing it. But this rehearsal process for Six was very challenging. It was unlike anything I've done. It's the hardest job I've ever had to do because the amount of dancing, the lyrics, thinking about doing justice to this character and where exactly I stand on stage in the formations, and dancing in the costumes. It was really really tough for me. It was really challenging. But I felt like it was a victory at the end when I finally felt like I had it. I'm still grappling with the show, though. I mean there's still moments now where I need to refresh something because it feels sticky, so I need to revisit it. And I think that's important in what I do. But yeah, I had some major ups and downs with feeling imposter syndrome throughout the rehearsal process, and I think that's important to talk about. I wish that other performers would talk about it more. I know that it feels really tender and like we're not supposed to admit "weakness," but I don't think it's weakness and I think it's completely normal in any industry. You want to impress people and you want to feel good about what you do, and suddenly you're a grown adult and you feel awkward at the one thing you're supposed to be really good at. So that was a really important process for me... To be able to come out of being really challenged by something and still believe that this was still exactly where I was supposed to be. Bottom line, the lesson for me was that you are allowed to feel like you're bad at something that you're actually good at. You are allowed to feel awkward in the process of doing your job. You do not always have to feel perfect or be perfect. You don't have to feel like things are easy for you to still be good at what you do. I think I'm better at what I do because I went through that process and it humbled me in terms of how the rehearsal process should go. I'm glad I struggled, but it definitely surprised me.

Tell me about your character and are there any ways you relate to her personally?

Catherine Parr was Henry VIII's final wife. He passed before she did, and she was kind of a caretaker for him as far as I understand. He was ill at the time, he was older, he was suffering, and she took care of him. She left behind the love of her life to marry Henry because she felt it was her duty. She felt that it was a calling from God for her to marry Henry instead of staying with her true love whose name was Thomas. She responded to a lot of duty in her life. She was married a couple other times simply because that's kind of what you did at the time... that was your duty, and she was a dutiful woman of faith. She was also highly intellectual and I think ahead of her time. She was the first English queen to publish books under her own name. She was a writer, like me. So it's really cool to play Parr because I think we have similar personalities and it's almost like I reflect and think if I were alive at that time, is that how I would have had to do things? Would I have had to marry because of duty? What I have to leave behind love? I'm such a romantic and I am so for obviously marrying for love and chasing love and chasing things that make you come alive. But it was a different time and would I have had a similar fate as well if I had been alive at that time as well? Probably. So I hope that I do her spirit and the women who have had a similar story justice by being so liberated on stage and being strong. I bring in a lot of my own power and personality and my almost sort of tomboy energy, which I'm sure isn't a traditional way to play a queen. But it makes me feel empowered, and in the show Catherine Parr gets to finally tell the audience about the incredible things that she did totally aside from being somebody's wife. And that's really empowering to me. And I just really love that she's a writer and I'm a writer, and it's a part of myself that I'm proud of that not everybody knows so I feel like through telling Catherine's story and her multi dimensional essence, it kind of reminds me of and celebrates my own multi dimensional essence. And that feels really empowering.

What is it about this show that resonates with audiences today?

I think that through the six queens everybody in the audience is going to resonate with something, especially women and non-binary audience members. I think they are going to resonate with something that the Queens speaks about... One of their struggles or they are really gonna resonate with a joke that they make or something. I think people fall in love with these multidimensional, vibrant and amazing characters. I think people feel seen, or at least I hope they feel seen when they come to see the show... Not only because we are looking at them in the audience and actually making eye contact and asking them to join us and dance, but also because the experiences that these queens had hundreds of years ago, the themes are not so different to what people experience today. Really they're not different at all. Sure being married to a king and being beheaded is not really relatable, but being in somebody's shadow, or being only considered exciting because of who you're married to, or feeling like you need to be with someone because of money. We talk about sexual assault in the show. There are a lot of heavy topics in the show, but there are a lot of things that are addressed that are not historical themes - they're just themes that happened to people who are oppressed. And I think that through this powerful and joyful pop show, and with so many jokes and the beautiful costumes, people may be more receptive to sitting with those truths. I think the show is a great vehicle for people to look at the world that they participate in and maybe how they participate in the oppression of others or of their own oppression. It's all about delivery, and that's why theater is so powerful because you could deliver a tough message in a way that people want to listen. I also think that aside from that, the music is fantastic. The dialogue is hilarious. In all iterations of the different cast of the show, the talent is awesome. People want to come and hear these voices. And I am just in awe every night being on stage with these powerhouse talents that I'm surrounded by. So it's a combination of a lot of things that just make the show so special. I'm just really happy to be a part of it.

Any last thoughts for those Omaha readers who may be holding out on buying a ticket to the show?

I always say that this show is such a good one to take people to who are skeptical about theater... People who think that musical theater is old art and it's not exciting, that think they know exactly what it's gonna be and that they're gonna be bored the whole time and they don't like that type of music. This is the perfect show to take them to because at the very least they are going to be very surprised that this is musical theater. They are going to find a song or a queen that they love, I just know it. This is a wonderful experience for theater lovers and theater skeptics alike, as well as history lovers, pop music lovers and anybody who loves Beyoncé or Ariana Grande or Alicia Keys or Nicki Minaj or Lizzo. So many different types of people will enjoy the show. I would say give it a chance. If there is a part of you that says you're skeptical, lean into it and come see the show anyway and see what you think. We welcome that. I think it's one of those shows that just surprises you.

To post a comment, you must register and login.