If you want to produce something that appeals to young theatergoers, ask a young theater artist to create it.

That seems a key ingredient in the recipe for the success of “Six.” A hit on Broadway and in London’s West End — and currently being presented by a touring company ensconced at St. Paul’s Ordway Music Theater through July 28 — it started life as a school project for the Cambridge University duo of Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. They decided to take a well-documented chapter of English history, the multiple 16th-century marriages of King Henry VIII, and retell it in 21st-century pop song styles.

The result is a kind of “American Idol”-esque sing-off that rocks and funks up the tales of trauma and tragedy endured by Henry’s six wives. But “Six” also holds some good advice about the path to unhappiness that is paved with comparing oneself to others. That could be a life-saving lesson for some teenagers. And, indeed, teen girls seem to make up a very large percentage of the show’s fan base, judging from Wednesday night’s Ordway crowd.

They likely found “Six” to be pretty darn fun, and that has a lot to do with the girl group energy that bursts the fourth wall as soon as the six wives and their four-piece, all-woman band take the stage. Each wife gets the opportunity to lay out her story in song, with Marlow and Moss adopting a different pop sub-genre for each of her majesties.

Hence, Catherine of Aragon uses a salsa-fied Caribbean jam to chronicle the divorce that led to the founding of the Church of England (after “the Pope said nope”), Anne Boleyn rocks up her road to execution, and Jane Seymour belts out a ballad of doomed love with all the passion and power that pop has gleaned from gospel.

But Seymour was only the third of the six wives, and after Kelly Denice Taylor skillfully scales the emotional peaks of the latter tune, “Heart of Stone,” Marlow and Moss’ score begins a descent onto far less imaginative terrain. Oh sure, there’s the enjoyable spoof of German electronic dance music that is “Haus of Holbein,” but the songs decline in quality in the show’s second half.

Perhaps that’s because Anna of Cleves doesn’t really have much of a story to tell — the marriage lasted months and she lived out her life in luxurious exile — and Katherine Howard’s dance-pop detailing of being an adolescent sex object suffers from Alizé Cruz’s unclear diction and an overloud band, key flaws in a musical that does all of its storytelling via songs.

Yet Adriana Scalice is quite good as the most fleshed-out and natural of the wives, Catherine Parr. She’s entrusted with putting an end to the posturing and calling into question the show’s entire patriarchal premise, and her version of “I Don’t Need Your Love” would prove a nice landing place — except that Broadway requires high-energy finales and curtain calls, and this 80-minute, intermission-less show obliges.

“Six” benefits from Gabriella Slade’s Beyonce-meets-the-Tudors costuming and the energetic and, ahem, well-executed pop-concert choreography of Carrie-Anne Ingrouille. With a set made of risers and chaser lights, it’s a very simple staging. And that keeps things from becoming overstimulating and distracting from its valuable message.

‘Six’

When: Through July 28

Where: Ordway Music Theater, 345 Washington St., St. Paul

Tickets: $191.50-$41.50, available at 651-224-4222 or ordway.org

Capsule: British history gets popped up in fun fashion.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.

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