‘Kimberly Akimbo’ Is Musical Theater at Its Absolute Best!

By Shelley A. Sackett

Kimberly Akimbo should not be as enjoyable as it is. The show tells the tragic story of a lonely teenage girl, Kimberly Levaco (Carolee Carmello), who suffers from a condition similar to progeria that causes her to age at a rate that is four and a half times as fast as normal. Only one in 50 million people is so afflicted, and Kimberly has the appearance and bodily breakdown of an elderly woman with a lifespan that rarely exceeds 16 years.

We meet her shortly after she moves with her family to a new town in suburban New Jersey, after they left their previous home under shady circumstances. She encounters the usual adolescent “new kid” syndrome on steroids. Her narcissistic mother, Pattie (Laura Woyasz), is pregnant with a baby she hopes won’t be like Kimberly. Her father, Buddy (Jim Hogan), is a drunk and an insensitive and negligent father. Kimberly is burdened by both her genetic disease and being a caretaker for her immature, dysfunctional and self-absorbed parents. She also has a crude and zealous aunt Debra (a showstopping Emily Koch), who shows up like a bad penny, ready to engage Kimberly and her teenage posse in her latest felonious scheme.

On top of this, Kimberly is about to turn 16. For her, the bell is truly tolling.

Yet, despite these odds, the team of South Boston native David Lindsay-Abaire (book and lyrics) and Jeanine Tesori (music) has made lemonade out of lemons, creating a poignant, funny, upbeat, and clever musical that also packs a wallop of insightful and optimistic messages on the way you can — and should —live your life, no matter how much of it remains to live.

With an unobtrusive yet stunning set design by David Zinn, terrific choreography (Danny Mefford) and orchestrations (John Clancy), and a stellar cast of Tony nominees and experienced Broadway actors (most of whom were in the play’s Broadway run), Kimberly Akimbo is an impressive show that leaves a significant impact and a smile on its audience’s face.

The storyline is anything but straightforward. The plays opens in 1999 at Skater Planet, an ice skating rink in Bergen County, New Jersey, where six teenagers — Kimberly, Seth (Miguel Gil), Martin (Darron Hayes), Aaron (Pierce Wheeler), Teresa (Skye Alyssa Friedman), and Delia (Grace Capeless) — express their misgivings, hopes and frustrations. Each is weird and awkward in their own way. What they all have in common is a feeling that they are not “seen” and a desire to fit in.

There are also teen hormones galore. Seth and Kimberly flirt and decide to partner for their biology project about diseases. Among the other four, unrequited crushes rule. They make plans to mount a Dreamgirls medley for the school choir show, and their practice sessions are a delight.

Kimberly’s home life is a mix of the absurd, the pathetic and the (almost) endearing. When Buddy is three hours late picking her up at the skating rink and arrives drunk, he persuades her to lie for him to her mother. Pattie has casts on both her arms after undergoing double carpal tunnel surgery and spends her time lying on the couch and making a clandestine video for the baby-to-be. Aunt Debra ambushes Kim in the school library, where she has been squatting. She tells Kim that her parents fled Lido, the last town where they all lived together, to deliberately dodge her, and convinces her to open the window at home to sneak her in.

Although the plot is full of capers, slapstick and great reveals (such as the reason the family had to bolt from Lido), the real pathos and meat of the production is exposed through its dazzling musical numbers.

In “Make A Wish,” Kimberly writes a letter to the foundation listing the three things she hopes she has time to do before her time runs out (be a model, take a cruise and build a treehouse) before realizing the only thing she could possibly wish for is to live like normal people live — “however normal people live” — for just one day.

In “This Time,” the entire company expresses their hopes for the future, while “Good Kid” offers the audience a glimpse into Seth’s heartbreaking backstory. Even more tragic, however, is “Our Disease,” which puts each student’s presentation on specific diseases (scurvy, fasciolosis and Kim’s disease, progeria) to music. Afterwards, as the students debrief and talk about their dreams for the future, they complain about high school as being “just the crap we have to get through before we get to the real stuff, the good stuff,” ignoring the fact that for Kim, high school is the only stuff.

Finally, fed up with their insensitivity and whining, she explodes. “Your disease is a bad case of adolescence,” she screams. “Getting older is my affliction; getting older is your cure.”

The cast is a theater goer’s dream. They are individually and collectively pitch-perfect, enunciating clearly and spot on in pacing and gestures. (Kudos to director Jessica Stone). As Kimberly, Carmello wears a sad, serious face that is believable and touching. As Seth, her eventual boyfriend, the talented Gil is her perfect partner. The four teens are a seamless ensemble and Koch, as the irrepressible Debra, brings down the house with her earthiness and fabulous vocals. Hogan has a Richard Dreyfus naturalness as Buddy and Woyasz is equal parts adorable and abominable as Kim’s mother, Pattie.

Lindsay-Abaire’s other plays include Fuddy Meers (1999), Good People (2011), and Rabbit Hole (2006), for which he won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Tesori has written the music for stage musicals such as Thoroughly Modern Millie (2000), Caroline or Change (2003), Shrek the Musical (2008), and Fun Home (2013); she has also been twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. She and Lindsay-Abaire had previously worked together on Shrek the Musical.

Kimberly Akimbo won five Tony Awards in 2023, including best musical. Unsurprisingly, Lindsay-Abaire and Tesori manage to pull a rabbit out of their prodigiously talented hat to end this potentially gloomy play on a hopeful, upbeat note where everyone — especially Kim — lives their life to the fullest. As my social worker friend and fellow audience member observed, sometimes people who know their days are numbered have a heightened awareness and appreciation for figuring out what really matters and going for it. What a gift and legacy that Kimberly not only walked that walk before she died, but also talked the talk. After all, as she proves, no matter what shape it takes, life is just one big adventure.

Highly recommended.

‘Kimberly Akimbo.’ Book and Lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire. Music by Jeanine Tesori. Based on the play by David Lindsay-Abaire. Directed by Jessica Stone. Music Supervision by Chris Fenwick. Choreographed by Danny Mefford. Presented by Broadway in Boston at the Emerson Colonial Theatre, 106 Boylston St., Boston, through May 18.

For theater information and tickets, go to: https://www.emersoncolonialtheatre.com/