Eamon Lujan, Guest Writer
The national tour of the Broadway musical, Kimberly Akimbo began its tour at the Buell Theatre on September 22nd, and will be playing in theaters across America for the next year. The show kicked off the Denver Center for the Performing Arts 2024-2025 Broadway Season, bringing the best of Broadway to the Mile High City. Kimberly Akimbo won the 2023 Tony Award for the Best New Musical, a prestigious title that helped it stay popular and relevant, until it closed in April this year. Prior to the performance I saw, I had not listened to any of the cast albums or read any specific plot details. I only knew it was about a teenager with progeria. The performance I attended had the full principal cast.
Kimberly Akimbo is adapted from a 2001 play of the same name, depicting the teenage struggles of Kimberly Levaco, a 16-year-old from New Jersey. Kimberly has progeria, a rare genetic disorder that causes people to age at a rapid pace. The musical role of Kimberly was originated by 64-year-old Victoria Clark on Broadway, and played by 62-year-old Carolee Carmello on the tour. The magic of this show rests on that performance, the suspension of disbelief that a woman in her 60’s is actually a teenager. Carolee Carmello is a star in this role, making the audience truly believe that she is just a teenager, trying to be happy while contending with her disease and mortality.
All roles in this show are cast so the actors appear as authentic to the age of their characters as possible. This helps Kimberly stand out amongst her young peers and middle-aged family. She is stuck dealing with her alcoholic father (played by Jim Hogan) and her narcissistic, pregnant mother (played by Dana Steingold). At school, she meets Seth (played by Miguel Gil), a charming, awkward boy obsessed with anagrams. In the meantime, her criminal Aunt Debra (played by Emily Koch) tries to drag Kimberly into a check-washing scheme.
First, I’ll start with highlighting the best of the show.. Kimberly Akimbo is a show that is relentlessly positive, without being the trite disability inspiration story we’ve seen many times before. It feels like it belongs in the 2017 season on Broadway, at home with shows like Dear Evan Hansen and Come From Away. There’s drama and serious moments but it also has ample use of humor and comedy to provide stretches of levity. It’s a deeply human show, covering the flaws and follies of a parent, teenage friendship and love, and our fickle mortality.
Kimberly’s “I Want” song is a letter to the Make-A-Wish foundation, talking about everything she’ll never get to do because she won’t live long enough to experience those things. Later, she’s among her peers as they sing about beginning their “real life”, in going to college and starting families. She sits there silently, dejected, knowing she won’t live long enough to have a life after high school.
As I said earlier, it is worth seeing this show on tour solely for Carolee Carmello’s performance as Kimberly. To be 50 years removed from being a teenager (much less one in 1999) and still being able to portray that authentically is nothing short of spectacular. When the rights to the show become available, local theaters are going to have a hard time finding anyone who can match such a performance.
I was also delighted with Miguel Gil’s portrayal of Seth, a sincere performance for an equally sincere character. Miguel was the original understudy for Seth during the Broadway run, and I’m so glad he gets to star in the role on tour. Seth is an awkward, wonderful “good kid” who plays the tuba. In his spare time, he creates anagrams, rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to say something new (Federal government can be rearranged to “large fervent demon”). His general weirdness and authenticity gives Kimberly a safe space, away from her deeply dysfunctional family.
Miguel and Carolee have wonderful stage chemistry. Carolee’s performance doesn’t work if Miguel also can’t convince the audience of their budding friendship and feelings, and he’s able to do that despite the 40 years of age between him and Carolee.
On the other end, here are the not so great things about the show. While I enjoyed my time in the theater, I found upon walking out that I couldn’t really remember any of the songs. Many were fun to watch, fun in the context of the scene they were in, but they weren’t catchy. I hold the opinion that truly great musicals must have songs that are memorable, worthy in their own right. I can’t see myself going back and consistently listening to the Kimberly Akimbo cast album in my spare time. I fear almost all the songs sounded the same, only 3 stand out in my mind with any clarity after the fact. Those three were “Better”, “Happy for Her”, and “How to Wash a Check”.
I also wouldn’t say this was a spectacularly staged production, or that it even felt “definitive”. It stayed committed to a realistic staging of the songs and material, but it didn’t make any part of it “stand out”. Come From Away is a show that’s grounded in equally realistic material, but it has a creative use of chairs and costumes within its minimal set to switch rapidly between people and places, giving it a feeling of momentum and purpose. And while it does escape being a disability inspiration story, it can’t escape being a dime-a-dozen feel good story. The story as I saw it would’ve worked better as a movie, as only a few parts of the story were elevated by the inclusion of music.
Overall, I give the show a 7/10. There were a lot of enjoyable moments and performances, but there’s a lot of missed potential. I also do not feel as though this show deserves the title of Best New Musical. It was up against Shucked, a corny, sincere, feel-good musical that I consider to be better than Kimberly Akimbo in all respects. Shucked will not be at the DCPA this season, but it has begun its American tour. If you have the chance to see Shucked, see it instead of Kimberly Akimbo.