Six, the new musical that had its opening night cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is back on stage and officially opens at Broadway's Brooks Atkinson on October 3. To celebrate the queendom's reign, check out these fresh production photos showcasing Adrianna Hicks as Catherine of Aragon, Andrea Macasaet as Anne Boleyn, Abby Mueller as Jane Seymour, Brittney Mack as Anna of Cleves, Samantha Pauly as Katherine Howard and Anna Uzele as Catherine Parr. Written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss and directed by Moss and Jamie Armitage, the musical centers on the six ex-wives of King Henry VIII, who headline an electrifying pop-concert spectacle—flipping the narrative of the one-sided story from the history books.
Abby Mueller, Samantha Pauly, Adrianna Hicks, Andrea Macasaet, Brittney Mack and Anna Uzele of Six.
(Photo: Joan Marcus)The stars of Six: Samantha Pauly, Abby Mueller, Anna Uzele, Brittney Mack, Andrea Macasaet and Adrianna Hicks of Six.
(Photo: Joan Marcus)
It’s no secret that a lot of old-fashioned boatbuilding goes on at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (CBMM). You can even learn how to do some wooden boatbuilding yourself, through their popular Apprentice for a Day program.
But an opportunity to see the unusual methods of a traditional Japanese boatbuilder is something new entirely. On Sunday Oct. 17, the maritime museum in St. Michaels will host Douglas Brooks—a craftsman who has made it his life’s work to learn Japanese boatbuilding techniques and bring his knowledge back to the United States.
Brooks traveled to Japan in the 1990s and set out to learn about the designs, tools and methods used by traditional boatbuilders there, and ended up interviewing around 50 boatbuilders and serving as an apprentice under seven different master boatbuilders.
Apprentices are expected to perform menial tasks, not speak unless spoken to, and learn only through observing the master boatbuilder—there is no overview of the work or “teaching” as we know it. Master boatbuilders work almost entirely from their heads without manuals.
Brooks was given rare access to the builders’ shops because they recognized there may not be many more opportunities to record and preserve their legacy.
Brooks was honored with the 2014 Rare Craft Fellowship Award, given to a craftsperson for “their contributions to the maintenance and revival of traditional or rare crafts in America.”
In a demonstration at CBMM’s working shipyard, Brooks will fit two planks in the Japanese fashion. Then, he will use a special set of chisels to cut pilot holes for the nails and edge-nail the planks together. The maritime museum points out that these techniques are “completely at odds with methods used in the west.” He’ll show the tools that are specific to Japanese boatbuilding. Following the demonstration, Brooks will give a presentation titled “Ways of learning: An apprentice boatbuilder in Japan.”
The demonstration is on Oct. 17 from 2-4 p.m., followed by the talk in CBMM’s Van Lennep Auditorium from 4:30- 6 p.m. The demonstration and talk are $35 per person, or guests can attend the talk only for $15. Registration is required at cbmm.org/JapaneseBoatbuilding.
"Demo" - Google News
October 01, 2021 at 11:29PM
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Master of Japanese Boatbuilding Gives Demo at Maritime Museum - Chesapeake Bay Magazine
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Indie extravaganza Steam Next Fest is back for another edition today, showering us with hundreds of upcoming game demos to try over the next week. Running from today, October 1st, until Thursday October 7th, the latest Steam Next Fest is positively packed to the rafters with things to play, and we've picked out some personal highlights to help you get started.
From action-packed runnin' and gunnin' and soaring discs catapulting through the cosmos to more relaxed hidden object games and airport fix 'em ups, there's bound to be something here that tickles your fancy. And fear not, we're going to carry on highlighting even more personal favourites over the coming week, too, as there are simply too many good games to shout about in a single list. For now, though, these demos should definitely be some of the first stops on your October Steam Next Fest playlist.
Imogen: Undungeon is a gorgeous isometric game where you play as a big scary character named Void. Despite being made by God and looking like Death Incarnate, Void is surprisingly susceptible to being murderised by scorpions, but he looks cool, so I'll forgive him. The scorpions are some of the first beasts you encounter in a deserty area in the demo, which you're exploring because you're on a mission to help the world after a cataclysmic event made a lot of dimensions go a bit weird. You'll travel through a bunch of strange lands and meet odd alien folk - including an actual game dev at one point whose character pops in to see if you're having a nice time. I was indeed! And I'm sorry for killing you to take your items.
Alice B: Though I am still waiting for someone to answer my extremely specific need for a renovator sim game where you do up old white-washed farm houses in the middle of nowhere, the charms of renovating an airport are specific and hilarious. Airport Renovator's demo gives you an abandoned, single strip airport in South America to have a crack at, and I know what I'm investing my money in if I ever get 50k, because apparently you can double your money by doing some weed whacking and dusting the tarmac.
Other extremely pleasing things about this demo: you remove trash by hitting it very hard with an axe, at which point the item in question, be it a stack of cardboard boxes or a load of metal oil drums, will crumble into what looks like sawdust; your supply drop lady/business partner is a lady pilot, but for some reason her in-game portrait is like a sexy cartoon girl, possibly related to Jessica Rabbit.
Alice0: Things I like in games include: 1) 2D characters in a 3D world; 3) not really being sure what a game is; 3) dodge-rolling with a sword. Anno: Mutationem fills a colourful 3D futurecity with 2D characters. I think you can explore fairly freely when not the plot isn't pushing you around? There are people to see and talk to, citylife to watch. And some cats who pushed bottles off a high edge, seemingly with malicious intent. And it has shops. And I've been collecting scrap materials to sell, or to craft. I definitely could buy weapon upgrades, if I had enough money, to use in the side-scrolling combat. Some sort of... action-adventure-explore-o-action-RPG? Dunno. I'm curious! And I do really like the first-person cutscenes where my cyberlady still has Bernband-esque spritehands.
Ed: Hidden Office tasks you with finding hidden objects scattered around a little office diorama. You can flip and rotate each office in search of things like scissors and staplers and plants and it is nice. The music is tinkly winkly and occasionally a cat will grace your presence. Click on a cat and you'll add it to a card collection. One of them has a bulldog's face, which is disconcerting. For a short demo, Hidden Office has some neat levels and provides a pleasant diversion from your busy day (even if it's based in an office). The commute is short, the work is sweet, job's a good'un.
Katharine: There are plenty of run 'n' gun games on Steam these days, but few manage to combine slick, fast-paced action with the acrobatic leaps and bounds of a creature like Ori from Ori And The Blind Forest. Soda Crisis, however, is one such game. Your bald human prisoner character may not look like they're particularly graceful, but by the end of the demo I was running up walls, jumping and diving around the place with my grappling hook, blasting enemies left, right and centre and feeling god damn powerful in the process.
Strangely, the first part of the demo feels like it's been taken from later on in the game, giving you a glimpse of what's to come in this strange, soda-bereft world before zapping you back to the beginning where you're trying to break out of an underground lab. The structure of the lab's challenge rooms feels oddly reminiscent of Portal and Stealth Bastards, only here you're working out the best order to shoot your heavily-armed targets instead of sneaking and chucking around companion cubes. It also has a neat energy-based upgrade system that lets adjust your playstyle, giving the option to your attack power, movement speed or sacrifice shooting up or down for more powerful horizontal bullet damage to name just a few of the abilities I saw. So don't be fooled by the name. Soda Crisis feels like it could be something very special indeed.
James: Exo One was announced well over four years ago, a wait that would usually leave me hungry for more info, but the sense of mystery that this demo evokes is so intoxicating it’s overridden my habitual need for spoilers. Here’s what we know: you control a little spacefaring orb, zipping around alien planetscapes by adjusting how closely the orb adheres to gravity. You’ll get a taste of this intensely satisfying mix of exploration and momentum-based, almost Tribes-like movement in the demo, complete with some achingly atmospheric sound work and the aforementioned raising of questions. Questions like what are these obelisks for? Where am I going next? And most importantly, when can I play more of this?
Hayden: When I was younger I absolutely adored Game Dev Tycoon. I only shy away from it now because if I started playing, I’d never stop. Startup Panic sunk its claws in just as deep, as it captured the same part of my heart. After playing for an hour or two, I had a big, silly grin on my face as my team of mini devs pumped pixelated blood, sweat, and tears into their latest website feature. The worst part was actually when the demo came to an abrupt end, so I went and bought it on the Epic Games Store (where it’s been available for the past year).
Rebecca: Stardew Valley, but make them vampires! Despite the (in my opinion) deeply unpromising title, that's the central premise of Brocula, a gentle pixel-art farming sim. Yes, it's mostly another Seasons of Harvest Valley type deal tasking you with resurrecting an abandoned ancestral farm, but the bumbling 500-year-old protagonist is straight out of What We Do In The Shadows, and who could resist that? Certainly not me.
The one-hour demo doesn't stray very far from the formula — it starts with you talking to the town mayor and then, if you're like me, you get sucked into playing a mildly frustrating fishing mini-game over and over despite it being completely optional. It's all comfortingly familiar for the most part, but if you've been looking for a new angle from which to view the farming sim genre, I recommend this quirky twist on the premise.
Ollie: Ten seconds after loading up the SpiderHeck demo for the first time, I understood exactly what the game was about. By 15 seconds in, the biggest smile had spread across my face as I catapulted my lopsided ragdoll spider through the air at tremendous speeds. SpiderHeck is a couch co-op game all about swinging around as a goofy neon arachnid, clambering along walls and ceilings, and launching yourself (along with missiles, laser swords, and all sorts of other ridiculously oversized weapons) at other players. There's a wave survival mode for co-op play, but the true strength of the game is definitely in the hilarious seconds-long PvP fights that culminate in limbs flying across the screen.
Ed: Hirilun's a first person parkour game and the demo has you jumping, gliding, and dashing through a beautiful black and white city. Some maps have you tumbling through pipes, then clambering back up towers. Others see you striding across rooftops or sliding down ramps. All of them are fantastic concrete jungle gyms. And crucially, there's a great sense of fluidity to your movements. If you'd like to feel very athletic and very cool, you should give this a try.
Rebecca: There are, as you'd expect, many great-looking visual novels being showcased as part of this event, but few jumped out at me quite as forcefully as Death Becomes You, a sapphic murder mystery set in a magical university. "So kind of like… Wicked retold via Danganronpa?" was my immediate thought, and because I love both those things, of course I had to check it out.
Despite the cool premise I doubt this one is going to do much to convert people who dislike visual novels (personally I love them, but I do get it). But if you're into them, then the writing here is pretty tight, the characters have a lot of potential, and the sprite animations and background music are really nicely done.
Ollie: APICO is a lovely little 2D crafting and simulation game about finding, breeding, and caring for various different species of bees. After an introduction that gives off strong Stardew Valley vibes, you're let loose in a very pretty - and startlingly large - map filled with trees to be chopped, people to meet and trade with, and bees to keep. You're guided through the opening stages by a very comprehensive book of tutorials and starting quests that teach you how everything works, making for a remarkably frustration-free experience. The best part though is how satisfying it is to chop down trees. Almost too satisfying. Forget the bees: I'm gonna become a walking ecological disaster mowing down whole forests with nothing but my axe and a crazed grin on my face.
James: Dextram is a 2D arcade shooter in which you can’t shoot. In fact, outside of some rare power-ups, you can’t do anything except turn to the right. This sounds simplistic, and it is, but when your primary means of attack is baiting enemies into smashing into each other, figuring out how to clear a wave becomes downright cerebral. Dextram doesn’t force you into finding the perfect movement pattern, though – improvisation will get you far as well, and even if it doesn't, the abrupt music cut on death adds a comedic sweetness that makes failure easier to swallow.
"six" - Google News
October 01, 2021 at 05:00PM
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'Six' was shut down on the day it was set to open. It's finally getting its big Broadway night. - The Washington Post
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Inspiration struck Toby Marlow during a comparative poetry class at Cambridge University in fall 2016. Participating in a discussion on William Blake, he found his mind wandering and began scribbling a series of unrelated notes: “Henry VIII’s wives → like a girl group … Need Lucy!!”
Then an undergraduate student tasked with writing an original show for the upcoming Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Marlow brought his idea to classmate Lucy Moss, who agreed to help bring his vision of a Tudor-themed pop musical to life. The product of the pair’s collaboration—Six, a modern reimagining of the lives of Henry VIII’s six wives—premiered on London’s West End in 2019 to much acclaim. (A cast soundtrack released in September 2018 similarly became an unqualified success.) Now, after an extended delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the musical is finally making its Broadway debut.
L to R: Abby Mueller (Jane Seymour), Samantha Pauly (Katherine Howard), Adrianna Hicks (Catherine of Aragon), Andrea Macasaet (Anne Boleyn), BrittneyMack (Anna of Cleves) and Anna Uzele (Catherine Parr) Liz Lauren
Six “didn’t come out of a love of the Tudor period particularly,” says Marlow, 26. “It came from us having an interest in the representation of women in musical theater, having women on stage doing funny and hilarious things.” Moss, 27, adds, “What we were interested in doing was reframing the way that women have been perceived in history and telling their side of the story.”
The Tudor period, with its “soap opera”-esque political machinations and rich cast of female characters, offered the duo the opportunity to explore contemporary issues like feminism through a historical lens. Though Sixprominently features the rhyme historically used to describe the fates of the Tudor king’s queens—“divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”—the musical moves beyond these reductive one-word summaries to present its subjects as fully realized individuals. “With all of them,” says Moss, “there was so much of interest beyond the moment they got married or divorced.”
Marlow and Moss drew on a range of sources when writing Six, including Antonia Fraser’s The Wives of Henry VIII and documentaries hosted by historianLucy Worsley. The musical’s layered repartee deftly balances references to Tudor culture with nods to modern music, like the line “Stick around and you’ll suddenly see more” (a play on “Suddenly, Seymour” from Little Shop of Horrors). Still, Marlow explains, the show’s goal isn’t to convey history with 100 percent accuracy. Instead, “It’s [asking], ‘What if Anne Boleyn was like this?’ And how does that change the way you think about this very famous historical figure?”
Six frames its story as a makeshift talent competition in which the wife whose life was most tragic “wins.” The rules are simple: “The queen who was dealt the worst hand … shall be the one to lead the band.” Each wife sings a solo summarizing her experiences, engaging in acerbic banter in between verses. (During these numbers, the other wives act as both backup singers and dancers; beyond the six solos, the 80-minute show features three group numbers.) Ultimately, the women decide to form a girl band instead, leaving the king out of the narrative and imagining an alternate future featuring far happier ends for all of them.
Historian Jessica Storoschuk, who has writtenaboutSix extensively on her blog, has found that in school and popular culture, the queens are usually only talked about in terms of their fate. “[Six] is this kind of ridiculous satire of [that],” she says. “It’s a really intelligent way to explore their experiences, or, I should say, one part of their experiences, because their downfalls are not all of their lives.”
Below, find a song-by-song (or wife-by-wife) breakdown of the true history behind Six. Click through the interactive tools to learn more about specific lyrics from the show.
The song: “No Way,” a Beyoncé- and JLo-inspired “girl boss feminism” anthem, says Moss
Though Catherine of Aragon’s marriage to Henry lasted 24 years—collectively, his five other marriages spanned just 14 years—she has long been overshadowed by her successors. The daughter of Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, Catherine came to England as the bride of Henry’s older brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales. But Arthur died shortly after the pair’s wedding, leading the Spanish princess to (eventually) marry his heir, Henry.
By all accounts, the couple enjoyed a loving relationship that only deteriorated due to a lack of a male heir and the king’s infatuation with Anne Boleyn. In the late 1520s, Henry sought a divorce from his first wife, arguing that her previous relationship with Arthur was the reason for the couple’s lack of a surviving son. Determined to protect her daughter Mary’s rights, Catherine refused to concede.
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Six’s account of these events, “No Way,” takes its cue from a June 21, 1529, meeting at Blackfriars in London. After years of debate over the validity of the royal couple’s marriage, a papal court was conceived to address the king’s so-called Great Matter. Appealing directly to her husband, Catherine fell to her knees and delivered an impassioned monologue:
Intending (as I perceive) to put me from you, I take God and all the world to witness, that I have been to you a true and humble wife, ever conformable to your will and pleasure. … If there be any just cause by the law that ye can allege against me, either of dishonesty or any other impediment to banish and put me from you, I am well content to depart, to my great shame and dishonor; and if there be none, then here I most lowly beseech you let me remain in my former estate, and receive justice at your princely hand.
After uttering these words, Catherine left Blackfriars, ignoring the clerk’s calls for her to return. Without turning around, she declared, “On, on, it makes no matter, for it is no impartial court for me, therefore I will not tarry.” The queen was correct in her assessment: Henry had no intention of remaining in the marriage. Determined to wed Anne, he broke from the Catholic Church in order to make her his wife.
Catherine’s Six solo could’ve been a “super emotional [sad] ballad,” says Moss. Instead, she and Marlow chose to emphasize the queen’s defiance, emulating Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls)” and setting the tone for the rest of the musical.
The real Catherine followed through on her fictionalized counterpart’s pledge to remain “queen till the end of my life,” refusing to acknowledge her marriage’s annulment even on her deathbed in 1536. Catherine’s legacy, historian Julia Fox told Smithsonian magazine last year, “is that of a wronged woman … who did not accept defeat, who fought for what she believed to be right until the breath left her body.”
The song: “Don’t Lose Ur Head,” a “cheeky” number modeled on Lily Allen and Kate Nash, according to Moss
Arguably the most (in)famous of the six wives, Anne is alternatively portrayed as a scheming, power-hungry seductress; a victim of her callous father’s vaulting ambition; or a worldly, charismatic woman who rose to the kingdom’s highest office only to be targeted by jealous men.
The truth of the matter depends on which scholar one asks. Most of Anne’s letters and papers were destroyed following her May 1536 execution on contrived charges of adultery, incest, witchcraft and conspiring to kill her husband, so much of what is known about her comes from outside observers, some of whom had reason to paint her in an unforgiving light. Even the queen’s date of birth, writes historian Antonia Fraser, is a fact “that can never be known with absolute certainty (like so much about Anne Boleyn).”
Anne’s song in Six, “Don’t Lose Ur Head,” draws its name from her method of execution: beheading by sword. Moss says she and Marlow view the number as a playful response to historians’ continued vilification of the queen as “calculating and manipulative”: “We were like, wouldn’t it be fun to mock [that trope] and make it that she was like ‘Well, I’m just living. I did this thing randomly, and now everything’s gone crazy.’”
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Though the tone of “Don’t Lose Ur Head” is intentionally more irreverent than the real queen, who Storoschuk says “was incredibly shrewd, very well educated, well read and well spoken,” the broad strokes of the song are historically accurate. Anne spent her teenage years in the courts of Margaret of Austria and Francis I of France, gaining a cosmopolitan worldview that helped her stand out in England. When she caught Henry’s eyes, she was a maid of honor in service of his first wife; rather than becoming Henry’s mistress, as her sister Mary had, Anne refused to sleep with the king until they were married. To wed Anne, Henry broke with the Catholic Church and established himself as head of the Church of England. Finally, the once-besotted king fell out of love in dramatic—and, for Anne, fatal—fashion just three years after their long-awaited marriage.
Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour, has gone down in history as the “boring” one. According to Fraser, she was intelligent and “naturally sweet-natured,” with the “salient characteristics [of] virtue and common good sense.” Historian Alison Weir similarly describes Jane as “endowed with all the qualities then thought becoming in a wife: meekness, docility and quiet dignity.”
Moss and Marlow tried to flesh out these descriptions by highlighting Jane’s political savvy. During her comparatively brief courtship with Henry, Jane drew on many of the same tactics used by Anne Boleyn, most notably by refusing to sleep with him until they were married. Presenting a submissive front may have been a tactic, says Moss. It’s also worth noting that Jane used her position to advance causes she cared about, including restoring her stepdaughters, Mary and Elizabeth, to their father’s favor and speaking out against the closure of England’s religious houses.
Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.
On one occasion, Henry reportedly dismissed his new wife by advising her to “attend to other things, [for] the last queen had died in consequence of meddling too much in state affairs.” “Heart of Stone” acknowledges this risk, but Six’s version of Jane chooses to remain steadfast in her love of Henry and their son, the future Edward VI.
Following Jane’s death in childbirth in 1537, Henry memorialized her as “the fairest, the most discreet and the most meritorious of all his wives”—a distinction no doubt motivated by the fact that she’d given the king his only surviving male heir, writes Weir. (Edward took the throne “Six” reflects this enviable status by identifying Jane as “the only one he truly loved.” As she herself acknowledges in “Heart of Stone,” however, Henry’s affection is conditional on her ability to provide him with a son.
Henry chose to include Jane, rather than his then-wife, Catherine Parr, in this dynastic portrait. Painted around 1545, the work depicts Edward, Henry and Jane at its center and Mary and Elizabeth in the wings. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Speaking with Vulture last year, Moss said, “The idea was about the strength of choosing to love someone and committing to someone, and that being an equally valid feminist experience.” She added, “I love that [Jane] gets to say, ‘I wasn’t stupid, I wasn’t naïve.’”
The song: “Get Down,” a 16th-century take on the rap and hip-hop “trope of being popular and bragging about your Ferrari and your Grey Goose,” says Moss
Anne (or, as the musical calls her, Anna) of Cleves was, in some historians’ view, the most successful of Henry’s six queens. After just six months of marriage, she earned the king’s enduring affection by agreeing to an annulment. Then, she proceeded to outlive her former husband, not to mention the rest of his wives, by a decade. “[Anne] did get pushed to the side in a rather unceremonious way, but she had a pretty good life,” says Storoschuk. “She was given several properties. She gambled a lot. She got to go hunting, she had the best clothes and the best food. She was loved at court.”
A 1540s portrait of Anne of Cleves by Bartholomaeus Bruyn the Elder St. John's College, University of Oxford, via Art U.K. under CC BY-NC-ND
“Get Down” focuses on this victorious period in Anne’s life, celebrating her independence as a wealthy, unmarried woman at Tudor court. In line with the musical’s goal of reclaiming the narrative, the number also reframes the incident that led to Anne’s annulment. Henry, enchanted by a flattering Hans Holbein portrait of his bride-to-be, was reportedly repulsed by the “tall, big-boned and strong-featured” woman who arrived in England at the beginning of 1540. Declaring “I like her not! I like her not!” after their first meeting, the king only went through with the wedding to maintain diplomatic ties with Anne’s home, the German Duchy of Cleves, and other Protestant allies across the European continent.
After just six months of marriage, Henry, eager to replace his short-reigning queen with the young, vivacious Katherine Howard, had the union annulled on the grounds of non-consummation and Anne’s pre-contract with Francis, Duke of Lorraine. Anne, from then on known as the “king’s beloved sister,” spent the rest of her days in luxury.
Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.
Moss studied history at Cambridge and says much of her schoolwork centered around early modern German visual culture. Six actually includes a standalone song, “Haus of Holbein,” that satirizes 16th-century beauty culture and Henry’s portrait-driven search for a fourth wife: “Hans Holbein goes around the world / Painting all of the beautiful girls / From Spain / To France / And Germany / The king chooses one / But which one will it be?”
Given Holbein’s reputation for accuracy and Henry’s own declining looks (at the time of the couple’s wedding, the king was 48 years old), Marlow and Moss chose to turn the tables, having Anne proclaim herself a fan of the much-vilified portrait. Further cementing Anne’s mastery of the situation, “Get Down”’s refrain finds the supposedly unattractive queen hanging up her likeness “for everyone to see.”
The song: “All You Wanna Do,” a catchy number modeled on the work of “young pop stars sexualized early on in their careers,” like Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears and Ariana Grande, as Marlow told Vulture
For much of history, Henry’s fifth wife, Katherine Howard, has been dismissed as a wanton woman of little import. Writing in 1991, Weir described her as a “frivolous, empty-headed young girl who cared for little else but dancing and pretty clothes.” Fraser, meanwhile, wrote that “[h]ere was no intelligent adult woman, wise in the ways of the world—and of course courts.” More recent scholarship has taken a sympathetic view of the queen, with Gareth Russell’s 2017 book, Young and Damned and Fair, leading the conversation. As Russell argues, “[Katherine] was toppled by a combination of bad luck, poor decisions, and the Henrician state’s determination to punish those who failed its king.”
Katherine’s Six solo, titled “All You Wanna Do,” echoes Russell’s characterization of its subject as a victim of circumstance and predatory older men. Though her exact birthdate is unknown, Katherine may have been as young as 17 when she was beheaded on charges of treasonous adultery in February 1542. Henry, comparatively, was 50 at the time of his disgraced wife’s execution.
Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.
The king was far from the first man to sexualize Katherine. “All You Wanna Do” details the queen’s relationships in heart-wrenching detail, from a liaison with her music teacher, Henry Manox (the song suggests that he was 23 to Katherine’s 13, but as Storoschuk points out, he may have been closer to 33), to an affair with Francis Dereham, secretary to the dowager duchess, Katherine’s step-grandmother. When each new romance begins, the teenager declares herself hopeful that this time will be different. By the end of the song, however, she realizes that all of her suitors have the same goal in mind.
According to Moss, she and Marlow wanted Katherine’s song to start out with a “sexy, seductive” tone before transforming into a “narrative of abuse” with echoes of today’s #MeToo movement. Marlow adds, “It was kind of like us talking about what happened to one of the queens and finding a way of relating it to something that we would recognize as a modern female experience.”
Katherine’s “life was so tragic,” says Storoschuk. “She was so young, and she really had very little agency over her own life. ‘All You Wanna Do’ really encompasses that.”
Often reduced to the one-word summary of “survived” or the role of nursemaid to a succession of ailing husbands, Henry’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr, was actually a renowned scholar, religious reformer and perhaps even protofeminist. In Six, she takes ownership of these attributes, refusing to be defined by her romantic relationships and instead listing her manifold accomplishments: “Remember that I was a writer / I wrote books and psalms and meditations / Fought for female education / So all my women can independently study scripture / I even got a woman to paint my picture.”
Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.
As the last of the six to take the stage, the fictionalized Catherine has dual obligations: namely, sharing her story and setting up a satisfying musical finale. “We needed one of the queens to be like ‘Wait, we shouldn’t be competing with each other. We should support each other,’” says Moss. “Fortunately, [Catherine’s role] as a writer, educator and advocate for women helped with that.” Encouraging the wives to take back the microphone, Catherine calls for them to assert themselves outside of their marriages to Henry. “It’s not what went down in history,” the six admit, “[b]ut tonight, I’m singing this for me.”
The real Catherine led a rich life beyond what’s captured in “I Don’t Need Your Love.” As alluded to by the song’s first verses, which find Catherine telling a lover that she has “no choice” but to marry the king, the twice-married young widow initially had another suitor in mind: Thomas Seymour, the dashing younger brother of Henry’s third wife, Jane. (The would-be couple wed soon after Henry’s death in 1547, but their marriage was tainted by Thomas’ improper conduct toward his new stepdaughter, the future Elizabeth I.)
Despite being forced into a relationship with Henry, Catherine made the most of her position, pushing her husband to embrace Protestantism and encouraging him to restore his daughters to the line of succession. She narrowly escaped an attempt by the court’s conservative faction to have her executed on charges of heresy, winning back Henry’s favor even after he’d signed a warrant for her arrest. Catherine died just a year after the king, succumbing to complications from childbirth in 1548.
"six" - Google News
October 01, 2021 at 07:47PM
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The True History Behind 'Six,' the Tudor Musical About Henry VIII's Wives - Smithsonian
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Team Ninja's new Final Fantasy game, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, will launch in March 2022. Square Enix announced during its Tokyo Game Show livestream that the game will arrive on March 18 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, as well as PS4 and Xbox One.
Additionally, a second demo was announced--and it is out right now. The demo will be available until October 11, and Square Enix will also send a survey to participants asking for their feedback.
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"My impression from the second demo of Stranger of Paradise is that its combat and systems are fun to play with and interestingly responsive, building a uniquely Final Fantasy take on some of the things we've seen from other big action games, like Nioh," Hornshaw wrote. "But there's also a lot to parse here, and it can get confusing. That said, this spin on Final Fantasy mechanics and combat is a fascinating one, and I enjoyed pummeling my way through various enemies and tough bosses. It's a Final Fantasy game where it feels like your strategic choices are just as important as your quick reflexes in combat, and while everything you know about Final Fantasy makes Stranger of Paradise feel familiar, there's a lot more going on under the surface of what we've seen so far."
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Stranger Of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin Release Date Announced, New Demo Out Now - GameSpot
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Siemens has received a $1.78 million contract with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to showcase how digital twin representations can improve medical device manufacturing. Results will be closely watched, as much is riding on such manufacturing breakthroughs.
While it was already a matter of national concern, government agencies’ ability to quickly and safely approve vital medications and equipment was put under a bright spotlight with the arrival of COVID-19. The pandemic placed new and continued attention on digital twin technology, as the FDA-Siemens contract indicates.
The pilot FDA program will demonstrate how medical device manufacturers can use digital twins to enhance product quality, speed up product development, and increase manufacturing capacity. Future goals will highlight best practices for quicker vaccine rollouts and safer drug development.
“We hope this will inspire the medical device leadership to think more holistically and strategically about digital transformation and to invest in bringing our industry up to the level of many other industries,” Del Costy, senior vice president and managing director, Americas at Siemens Digital Industries Software, told VentureBeat. “We must continue to push for more digital design and manufacturing to increase accuracy, supply chain resilience, and improve patient outcomes.”
Siemens has long been a leader in medical software and digital twins. This partnership will also give the FDA team hands-on experience with cutting-edge tech that could safely speed regulatory processes.
The project will also showcase best practices for medical companies to adopt into their development workflows. Carryline USA and Premier Automation will also supply cutting-edge 3D conveyors and robotic systems that automate materials handling. These can be dynamically reconfigured for product variations and different products to support hyperautomation of factory lines.
The project could also help FDA teams improve their understanding of new processes and tech to improve industry guidance, develop better regulatory science tools, and prepare for new manufacturing processes.
This builds on prior FDA research on 3D printing, which led to several international standards and widespread adoption of the technology. It has also researched continuous manufacturing techniques for drug substances that led to draft international standards and guidance documents.
Simplifying regulation
One key goal of the program is to demonstrate how digital threads could simplify workflows that cross medical, engineering, quality, and regulatory processes. A digital thread connects multiple data feeds models and representations comprising digital twins of products and factory configurations.
“Creating and leveraging digital threads are an invaluable capability for both medical device manufacturers and the FDA,” Costy said
For example, digital threads can support integrated modeling and simulation processes that span product design, optimized production, and regulatory approval processes. One goal is to help regulators like the FDA find ways to better visualize the product and manufacturing risks, provide more robust traceability and impact analysis, and enable more comprehensive data sets that are easier and faster to review. This will allow regulators to respond much faster, with more precision and better information, to both emergency and non-emergency needs.
The effort was specifically funded by the FDA’s Office of Counterterrorism and Emerging Threats (OCET), which leads FDA efforts to address national and global health security, counterterrorism, and emerging threats.
Transforming med production
The pandemic was a significant factor in pursuing this kind of collaboration between the FDA and industry. “While the medical device industry has been advancing over the past few years, the pandemic exposed the gaps,” Costy said, “especially when compared with the non-medical device manufacturers that jumped in to help manufacture ventilators and other critical supplies.”
Some of the improvements that digital twins can introduce to various types of processes include:
Simplify design transfer across product development and manufacturing teams;
Bring agility to scale production and transfer products across manufacturing lines;
Improve the ability to analyze product and process risks;
Transition from paper-based quality processes to digital workflows; and
Facility supplier collaboration and visibility.
“The promise of digital twins, closed loop production systems, distributed manufacturing, and other advanced technologies is that they will enable more efficient use of resources,” FDA spokesperson Stephanie Caccomo told VentureBeat. That means better access to production where it is needed, and better resilience to disruptions by simulating outcomes and product quality with inputs, she continued.
For its part, Siemens plans to configure many different use cases for digital twins workflows such as labeling, supplier collaboration, and designing for service. Down the road, the company hopes to explore new capabilities such as trusted traceability for improving the supply chain. This could help manufacturers rapidly mitigate supply shortages, swap out parts, and reduce counterfeit issues.
The initial use cases will focus on medical devices. Down the road, Siemens would like to demonstrate how digital twins could be used for biologics, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, and cosmetics manufacturing.
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