Mallory Maedke
Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department alum Mallory Maedke ’14, a graduate of the Theatre Department’s BFA Program in Musical Theatre Performance, performed on the 2022 Tony Awards show at Radio City Music Hall in New York City as a member of the six-woman cast of the Broadway hit Six. The show was broadcast live on CBS on June 12. Here’s a video of the Six segment, featuring Maedke as Jane Seymour, one of the six wives of medieval England’s King Henry VIII.
Maedke, who has been a Six company member since the British musical received its U.S. premiere at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre in 2019, is the show’s dance captain as well as an “alternate queen” who covers three roles in the production. As recounted in an article on the Playbill show-business news site, Maedke learned one day before the Tony show that Abby Mueller, who plays Jane Seymour, had tested positive for COVID and would not be able to perform at the televised awards ceremony. Maedke would have to take her place.
Reports Playbill: “The company would perform a mashup of the title number ‘Six’ and ‘Ex-Wives’ at Radio City Music Hall, a stage much larger than the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, where they normally play eight shows a week. Not only that, but due to COVID protocols at Radio City, [Maedke] had not been allowed to attend rehearsal with the cast earlier in the week. So, they rented a rehearsal studio on Saturday to discuss the new cut made specifically for the Tonys and teach Maedke the adjusted staging. She did have one rehearsal on the Radio City stage the morning of the Tonys, then spent the day studying videos of that rehearsal to perfect her performance for Sunday night.”
Mallory Maedke
Playbill also reports that at the end of the Six segment, Tony Awards host Ariana DeBose announced: “I do want everybody to hear this because this is what tonight’s been all about! Mallory Maedke! This woman is the dance captain and the alternate who was put into this number 12 hours ago. It’s what they do because the show must go on!”
To read the full Playbill article, click here.
