As long as were picking at excellence, Ill add that Kimberly Akimbo isnt yet all it might be. Kimberly Akimbo is a 2021 musical with music by Jeanine Tesori, and lyrics and book by David Lindsay-Abaire.It is based on Lindsay-Abaire's 2001 comedy of the same name.. He was previously the editor of Stages Magazine, the chief theater critic for the Christian Science Monitor, and a theater critic and culture writer for the New York Post. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . Buy Kimberly Akimbo Tickets & View the Schedule at Box Office Ticket Sales! Because Im so invested in the parent side of the story, and in the mortality side of the story, and in the how-do-you-choose-to-live-your-remaining-days-on-this-planet side of the story, I forget about the delight, the tremendous luxury of hope and time, that teens have. Seize the day! In its quieter moments, Kimberly Akimbo displays a poignancy and tenderness that will seep into your heart. David Lindsay-Abaire's "Kimberly Akimbo" plays like a pilot to a really good sitcom that . Kimberly Akimbo runs through October 20. No one gets a second time around, they sing in the finale (though Kimberly Akimbo fortunately did). Copyright 2023 New York Stage Review All Rights Reserved. All the jokes work that way. . Katrina Lenk as Bobbie and Claybourne Elder as Andy in Company. This Week, Including a Solo Show About Polka. Kimberly is played by Lindsay-Abaire's unlikely but adorable muse, Marylouise Burke, 62, whose face does indeed look surprisingly girlish, despite the natural signs of age, when placed underneath. Before that, she honed her craft in off-Broadway shows like Ryan Scott Oliver and Hunter Fosters Jasper in Deadland, as well as on the concert stage, where shes affectionately known to fans as Belting Bonnie.. Soon, Kimberly's family gets mixed up in some crazy money schemes, and the family is emotionally destroyed. What is surprising is that Kimberly Akimbo, based on the 2000 play of the same name by David Lindsay-Abaire, manages a similar feat. Kimberly Akimbo Review: Whats an Anagram for Wonderful? Quick View. Ive been able to be a fully formed artist, more than just somebody coming on for a quick fat or food joke, and completely bring myself in two shows, she explained. Wed.-Sat. Pattie is convinced shes going to die soon, and is here breaking the news to her sister, Debra. The show works best when its at its simplest, such as the touching song Make a Wish, in which Kimberly tries to decide what exactly shell ask of the Make-a-Wish Foundation, or the character-defining ballads that Kimberlys parents sing to their unborn child. It is like dumping a bunch of puzzle pieces onto the table, he said. . Remember when Mr. Hicks dropped dead, Debra? Kimberly Akimbo is an odd-duck dramedy with off-center charm and poignant underpinnings. LINDSAY-ABAIRE Look, I love my family very much. Tony-winner Victoria Clark stars as a teenage girl with a genetic disorder that causes her to age rapidly in a wondrous new musical by David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori. The Jessica Stone-helmed production began Off-Broadway November 6. But then I thought, Oh, if we make it really sort of furtive, and its got a little bit of a muted guitar thing, and its sort of like Peggy Lee, but maybe on a very, very off day Its having it be fun, so that she can convince the teens to be part of it. So paired with Tesoris peppy, jingle-like, adequate score is a heap of sadness. My crablike love!) form a kind of descant to her rapturous discovery of his askew point of view: I like the way you look at life and think outside the box, she sings. 2023 Tony Awards eligibility rulings (round 1): 'Kimberly Akimbo,' 'Into the Woods,' '1776' and a change in voting procedure by Sam Eckmann. Lindsay-Abaire is an award-winning writer whose work includes plays and musicals and subject matters both serious and comic. . Choreographed by Danny Mefford. Speaking of teenagers, theres a duality to the show. Performances will now run on extension through January 15, 2022, instead of the previously announced January 2. If you continue to use the site, your agreement will result in cookies being set. The cast of the Broadway premiere of the Kimberly Akimbo musical includes the same actors who were in the Off-Broadway presentation. If they rarely last as long as, say, Six or Moulin Rouge seem likely to, these shows prove their immense value in the time theyve got. Kimberly is burdened not only by a disease for which the average life expectancy is 16 (Its just an average though, she says brightly) but also by a family that has not handled it nearly as well as she has. Steven Boyer, right, with Clark and Cooley. Victoria Clark, who plays the lead . [7], A musical adaptation of the play premiered at Atlantic Theater Company in November 2021, with book and lyrics by Lindsay-Abaire and music by Jeanine Tesori. Kimberly Akimbo Unisex Point of View Hoodie. a genetic aging disorder akin to progeria, as an anxious mother in The Light in the Piazza,, It will be one of the hottest tickets in town. Anyone can read what you share. Each is beautifully portrayed in songs that give the actors a chance to shine. Review: Kimberly Akimbo, Both Great and Small, Seizes the Day, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/theater/kimberly-akimbo-review.html. TAGS Actors +. Because Im a fixture in your life. We share the same sensibility of humor. Kimberly Akimbo takes place in 1999 in suburban New Jersey, where the title character is a 16-year-old high school student who looks like shes 72 because of a rare condition thats accelerated her aging. I have a very big family and I know a lot of complicated people who have done some complicated things and who, in their minds, are doing their best, Milligan told HuffPost. Look at Mr. Hicks. So naturally Kimberly Akimbo is a musical comedy. Ive written often about Tesoris chameleonic brilliance, the way in shows as distinctive as Fun Home, Caroline, or Change and Shrek she seems to have at her disposal an infinite thesaurus of musical styles so that each setting is as expressive as possible. LINDSAY-ABAIRE The first time in, I was really accessing my teenage years and stuff about my parents and my family, but really homing in on the Seth character who is very close to me in very many ways. What has it gotten me?) In another, a duet with Kimberly, he cranks out possible anagrams of her name in real time. She makes friends with the Gleeky show choir, who all have secret crushes on each other. The new show that opened at the Atlantic Theater Company concerns a teenager whos suffering from a horrible rare disease that causes her to age at over four-and-a-half times the normal rate, meaning that shes already reached her probable life expectancy. Milligan has the most obvious showstoppers, one per act, in which she introduces her crew of goody-goodies now including Kimberly and Seth to the thrilling anarchy of selfishness. I think Kimberly Akimbo could be a musical. Healthy enough to write, damaged enough to want to write. That Tesori can write any kind of music is old news. He connects with Kim on a school science project and, eventually, they grow close on a more personal level. Kim is a bright and funny Jersey teen, who happens to look like a 72-year-old lady, and yet, her aging disease may be the least of her problems. Justin Cooley, center left, as Seth with Clark, center right, in the show at the Linda Gross Theater. It's a perfect start to this funny-sad musical treat by composer Jeanine Tesori and writer and lyricist David Lindsay-Abaire, based on his play. He compensates by agreeing to take her to a burger joint for some food, where they meet Seth, the nerdy kid behind the window, who asks if Kim can do an interview for his project. . As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. A terrific New York debut by the 18-year-old Justin Cooley. Its hard when you say, Hey, 20 people, come on in and lets do this puzzle together. But if its just the two of you I have this corner; Im working on the edges; lets get to the middle then it comes into focus. 15, 2022. When the show premiered Off Broadway last winter at Atlantic Theater Company, Jesse Green, the chief theater critic for The New York Times, called it a funny and moving new musical. Led by the producer David Stone (no relation to the director), the show sold out its run, and a Broadway transfer was quickly announced. Here's how. Anyways, he gets so desperate he snorts some of the bath salts in the bathroom. He is a bit akimbo too, a teenager who works hard, is a proud nerd, drily comic, anddespite his youthkeen to help Kim achieve her dreams to go on a road trip. As portrayed by Milligan, however, the scene-stealing character becomes the kind of brassy antihero Bette Midler might have played in her prime. Music by Jeanine Tesori. The staging shares the same DNA as The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and Ride the Cyclone. David Zinns house-and-school set, however, does feel a little slight for even the intimate Booth. The Off-Broadway and Broadway stagings of Kimberly Akimbo are the major productions thus far, but the play has had additional major productions. "Kimberly Akimbo," presented by Moxie Theatre at the Lyceum Space, Horton Plaza, 79 Broadway Circle, San Diego. [My sons] think its hilarious. LINDSAY-ABAIRE Its a teaching song. It has a really deep, complicated inner life. And I like how funny it is.. The show is mostly monologues. The earnest young quartet played by Fernell Hogan, Michael Iskandar, Nina White and Olivia Elease Hardy are an exuberant highlight and happily bring to mind the scrappy cast of Stranger Things.. Kimber issn, but se played by a are 'ents or seen. That was already the case in the play by David Lindsay-Abaire on which it is based, a play that begins, as the musical does, with a visual joke: a grown-looking woman, outside a skating rink, dressed like a teenager and nibbling a candy necklace. Lindsay-Abaires many eccentric flourishes, at times, can come across as showing off. A musical dramedy set in New Jersey, "Kimberly Akimbo" tells the story of a teenager named Kimberly (played by Victoria Clark) who has a disease akin to progeria, which causes her to age at a. In the musical, Kimberlys aunt sings an upbeat number about how to commit mail fraud. Kimberly is now an ordinary teenage trapped in a much older person's body, and only through song can she escape to be truly free. The cute new musical Kimberly Akimbo, which opened Thursday night on Broadway, piles on weirdness with a dump truck. And now, with the addition of songs (music by Jeanine Tesori; lyrics by Lindsay-Abaire) that turn the carpe diem dial to maximum, the director Jessica Stone has turned up the hilarity dial as well, to keep all that emotion in balance. Kimberly Akimbohas arrived on Broadway, where it opened to unanimous rave reviews. The whole dynamics between parents and teenagers that I was sort of making up 20 years ago, now I know it deeply and personally. For the complete performance schedule and show times, please visit the Kimberly Akimbo page. Victoria Clark (Kimberly), Justin Cooley (Seth), and Stephen Boyer (Buddy) in the Atlantic Theater Company production of . Discover a full timeline of the show's history below. Kimberly AkimboThrough Jan. 2 at the Linda Gross Theater, Manhattan; atlantictheater.org. Enter Kims Aunt Debra (Milligan), a street-smart grifter who, much like the Artful Dodger of Oliver Twist, recruits her niece into an illicit, moneymaking scheme that could help her and her classmates fulfill their dreams that is, if no one gets caught. [1] [2] Its title character is a lonely teenage girl suffering from a disease similar to progeria, that causes her to age four and a half times as fast as normal, thus trapping her inside the frail physical body of an elderly woman. Two hours and 30 minutes at the Booth Theatre, 222 W. 45th Street. NEW YORK Like butterscotch sauce and the 1967 Mustang, "Kimberly . Those classmates (charmingly played by Olivia Elease Hardy, Fernell Hogan II, Nina White and Michael Iskander) are the most obvious addition to the musical, having been invented to provide social context, a singing ensemble and broader humor. Because I think sometimes because musicals have artifice, they can seem artificial. Regular price $35.00. Kimberly Akimbo is a play written in 2000 by David Lindsay-Abaire. . This light but mildly provocative comedy has interesting three-dimensional characters and witty dialogue. / Getting older is your cure.. By making it a musical, we had a way into the characters that the play did not have. KIMBERLY AKIMBO is at once a shrewd satire, a black comedy and a heartbreaking study of how time wounds everyone." NY Times. Its exhilarating.. By turns, it can be profoundly funny or deeply moving. First theres the main character, Kimberly (Victoria Clark), who is 16 but suffers from a rare unnamed condition that makes her age at an accelerated rate. Almost. Cooley and Clark reveal a surprisingly meaningful and lively connection that makes us root for them, even though their future is impossible. Nothing should stop the How of the play KIMBERLY AKIMBO ACT ONE Scene 1 A bs of eld wind, unde of winter wind hurling, maybe Lights come upon a bench ouside. She steers the second act into a Catch Me If You Can if that movie was set at a Hackensack Dunkin Donuts. Endless gratitude to Jeanine, David, Jess, Danny and Craig for their guidance and their trust. I'm sorry I forgot, honey. The performance is a pleasant blend of optimistic and worldly. Kimberly Akimbo Unisex Distressed Logo Tee. Your culture and entertainment cheat-sheet. Her overprotective father neednt worry about her getting pregnant, she reminds him, because she went through menopause four years ago. Directed by David Petrarca, the cast featured Marylouise Burke (Kimberly), John Gallagher, Jr. (Jeff), Ana Gasteyer (Debra), Jodie Markell (Pattie), Jake Weber (Buddy) and Daniel Zaitchik (Jeff). Kimberly's last name isn't really "akimbo." But her stance is increasingly headed that way. The most recent musical to run at the theatre was the Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal, which opened in 2009; the improv hip-hop show freestyle love supreme also played there in 2021. David Lindsay-Abaire, Jeanine Tesori and Jessica Stone on the Kimberly Akimbo set. The new musical, with book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire and music by Jeanine Tesori, will start previews on Oct. 12, ahead of a Nov. 10 opening. Don't miss a beat. Let us be thriving, let us be attractive, let us be fully formed people because we are in the world.. Copyright [2023] Mighty Actor, DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES FOR TEENS/KIDS (BOYS), DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES FOR TEENS/KIDS (GIRLS). 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