And dont let its pure enjoyability mislead you into thinking its not a tragicomedy. www.ovationtix.com. Victoria Clark plays a teenager afflicted with an illness that makes her grow old prematurely in the new musical by David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori. If you can have a gaggle of teenagers skipping out of the show, and then this grumpy old man with tears in his eyes thats victory. The upside is that it draws her to the ber-nerd, Seth, played in a terrific New York debut by the 18-year-old Justin Cooley. So naturally Kimberly Akimbo is a musical comedy. Wed.-Sat. Anyways, he gets so desperate he snorts some of the bath salts in the bathroom. The Jessica Stone-helmed production began Off-Broadway November 6. TAGS Actors +. You should be happy. Corey Regensburg, a recent graduate of the University of the Arts . Victoria Clark as Kimberly, who appears to be in her 60s though. Victoria Clark. Her best song the shows best, actually is Anagram in which she starts to fall for Seth as he rearranges the letters of her name into a new phrase. By Charles Isherwood. Pattie: Kims mom, a pregnant hypochondriac who tends to overlook her daughter. By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. (He loves puzzles and word games; the shows title is a partial anagram.) We're very sorry, but we had a problem canceling your order. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Learn more about this heartfelt show about living life to the fullest. Buddy strongly refuses and drives away. So, she appears to be a woman in her mid-sixties and also deals with the health issues of one. 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. Her mother, Pattie (Alli Mauzey), is ludicrously hypochondriacal, as if atoning for the chromosomal accident that produced her quick-aging child. Even when she shares an awkward kiss with a classmate named Seth Weetis played by the completely adorable 19-year-old Justin Cooley humor is the top note, sweetness the body, pathos just an aftertaste. As long as were picking at excellence, Ill add that Kimberly Akimbo isnt yet all it might be. Clark is responsible for the carpe diem part, and it need hardly be said if you saw her Tony Award-winning performance in The Light in the Piazza in 2005 that her singing is phenomenally rich and specific. Olivia Elease Hardy, Fernell Hogan, Nina White, and Michael Iskander reprise their roles as Kims classmates. Kim is a bright and funny Jersey teen, who happens to look like a 72-year-old lady. The play was initially produced at the South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa, California, from April 13 to May 13, 2001. No matter how much life wants to sideline them, they insist on having the spotlight, and even the sequins. The Tony Awards Administration Committee met for the first time during the 2022-2023 Broadway season on January 31 to discuss eligibility of 20 productions for the 76th Annual Tony Awards in Too often, though, Kimberly seems merely a peripheral figure in the overly farcical proceedings, which are admittedly very funny at times (theres a priceless sight gag involving Mulligan and a mailbox) but too often reduce the show to a sitcom level. Each of these subjects produces a wonderfully unexpected song that forwards the plot while deepening the characterizations. And Vivid Seats will help get you there. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. 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.. Kimberlys schoolyard love interest Seth (Justin Cooley) speaks fluent Elvish from J.R.R. Project description: "This funny and heartwarming play is about a teenager with a rare condition that causes her body to age faster than it should." Roles Collapse All Roles Actors & Performers. The character of Seth was named Jeff in the. 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. 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. Almost. If you continue to use the site, your agreement will result in cookies being set. David, what were the instincts that led you to write Kimberly Akimbo 20 years ago? Stu is a cocaine addict at the party, and he replaced the face powder in the bathroom with cocaine during the party, however, someone else uses it, causing some hilarity. Kimberly Akimbo - Monologue (Pattie) A monologue from the play by David Lindsay-Abaire PATTIE (mid-thirties) Pattie is convinced she's going to die soon, and is here breaking the news to her sister, Debra, and her teenaged daughter, Kimberly, who has a disease that causes premature aging. And our friends have been through some [expletive], and weve lost people. Everything you need to know about 'Kimberly Akimbo' on Broadway, Do not sell or share my personal information (for California residents only), 2003: The play debuts off Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in February, also with Burke. Or do you remember when Cinnamon died, and we still kept going to put the table scraps into his dog bowl? Getting older is my affliction. Jeff is her bright spot; his cautious attentions are a lovely bit of fantasy, and his winning depiction by John Gallagher Jr. inspires great confidence in this young actor's future. Clark and Justin Cooley, who are reprising their roles on Broadway. We share the same sensibility of humor. the play by David Lindsay-Abaire on which it is based, It will be one of the hottest tickets in town, premiered at the Atlantic Theater Company last year, among many smart adjustments made to the show for Broadway. The Kimberly Akimbo musical had its world premiere off Broadway at Atlantic Theater Company in 2021, 20 years after the Kimberly Akimbo play premiered. Each is beautifully portrayed in songs that give the actors a chance to shine. . Kimberly: An outcast 16-year-old grappling with an aging disease that makes her look like shes in her 70s. Suddenly theyre gone forever. Shes not maliciously trying to hurt people, but she will because she needs to survive. Directed by David Petrarca, the cast starred Marylouise Burke as Kimberly. Performances will now run on extension through January 15, 2022, instead of the previously announced January 2. The actor, singer and and body diversity advocate is giving a star-making performance in "Kimberly Akimbo," an unconventional new musical. Something different has happened to David Lindsay-Abaire's play "Kimberly Akimbo" on its way to becoming a new musical, which opened Wednesday at the Atlantic Theater Company. This light but mildly provocative comedy has interesting three-dimensional characters and witty dialogue. Kimberly Akimbo. And yet her aging disease may be the least of her problems. Mature inside and outside, Kimberly is de facto caregiver for her dysfunctional New Jersey clan. . 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. Kim boldly decides to live every day like its her last. Its just animal instinct taking over., She went on to note: Shes also a charismatic person that you want to be around. Born with a fatal aging disorder akin to progeria, Kimberly Levaco (Victoria Clark) is a 15-year-old girl whose body resembles that of a woman well into her 70s. 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. Atlantic Theater Company at the Linda Gross Theater, 336 W. 20 St., NYC. (To Debra who passes from basement to exit house.) Their classmates may have chosen scurvy and fasciolosis, but what they really suffer from is a bad case of adolescence, she sings. What makes Kimberly not cloying, as adults pretending to be kids usually is, is that she is an old soul because of her hard life. It causes children to age rapidly, starting in their first two years of life. She meets another misfit (a teenage boy) and the two form an attachment to one another that borders on attraction, but their situation is not helped by Kimberly's rapidly deteriorating health. The toilets wouldnt stop flushing. This is done without undue violence to the ingenious original premise, which makes comedy, as we all must, of tragedy. including intermission. It's good enough, in fact, that you wish it had been just a little bit better. Tickets and information: atlantictheater.org And that, to me, is David and Jeanine, and their work and their sensibility, said Stone, 52, who has been attached to the musical since 2019. Im gonna die, Kim. In a household filled with impulsive, appetitive childishness, Kimberly, who has to feed Pattie her morning cereal because both her arms are in casts, is the adult by default. KIMBERLY AKIMBO Two hours and 30 minutes at the Booth Theatre, 222 W. 45th Street. Running nearly two-and-a-half hours, the musical feels padded with extraneous material, including lengthy interludes devoted to anagrams and ice skating and a song devoted to a school project about scurvy (dont ask). The hodgepodge of elements is a lot for director Jessica Stone to fuse together, but she succeeds by latching onto a show-choir vibe. But what has become even richer since Kimberly Akimbo premiered at the Atlantic Theater Company last year is her profound and uncritical immersion in youthfulness. By turns, it can be profoundly funny or deeply moving. The oldest and first dedicated online New York Theater Guide Read news on over 150 Broadway and Off-Broadway shows. Anyone can read what you share. Thanks for contacting us. Drama Desk Awards: The musical won Outstanding Musical and was nominated for eight additional awards for performance, writing, direction, and design. Thank you, Stone said, as Tesori returned to her seat in the basement lounge of the Broadway theater. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. "Theater to See in L.A. At a reading of the play in connection with the 2001 Kesselring Award ceremonies, Edie Falco, John Bedford Loyd and Jan Leslie Harding proved excellent collaborators for Burke and Gallagher. And they messed me up just enough for this play to be what it is. Leaving the ironies to us, she refuses to condescend to the character. MONOLOGUE BANK From: The Good Times Are Killing Me by Lynda Barry EDNA: The hills are alive with the sound of music was the first best movie I ever saw and the first best music I ever heard. Gift articles to give each month hypochondriac who tends to overlook her daughter to the! 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