PREVIEW: Comedy Musical Gold: Kimberly Akimbo Lands at the Orpheum

Laura Woyasz as Pattie in the National Tour of Kimberly Akimbo, which runs July 8-13 at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, MN. Photo by Patrick Gray, Kabik Photo Group.

Once upon a time, there was an award-winning play with ice skating, a hypochondriac parent, and a girl who aged so fast that she looked elderly while only a teen. Then Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire wrote a comedy musical about it, and it was good.

Three-time Tony Award nominee Carolee Carmello plays the title role of Kimberly. Photo by Joan Marcus.

That show, which opens tomorrow at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, is Kimberly Akimbo. Its 2022 Broadway opening was praised by the New York Times‘ Jesse Green as a “profoundly funny and heartbreaking new nerdical” and the season’s “most moving new musical”. For a notoriously prickly critic, this was great praise indeed.

What made the show so much of a hit? According to Variety‘s Naveen Kumar, “It asks big questions about family and mortality. It’s unabashedly heartfelt and irresistibly funny. Like life, it’s inherently sad and a little absurd…almost impossible not to love.”

Actor Jim Hogan, who plays Buddy in *Kimberly Akimbo*, is also the long-term partner in real-life to castmate Emily Koch, who plays Debra. The pair’s unique relationship dynamic from getting to yell it out at each other onstage on Broadway is one of many offstage pearls that have tickled show fans. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Some of that absurdity comes with the titular protagonist Kimberly and her morbid (and quite funny) outlook on death. Where else would you find a jovial song about scurvy? Or a song about father time that is not about seeing your daughter grow up, but seeing her age to death before middle age? Much hay is made of the darker matter of death.

The laughs don’t stop there – the uncommon scenario is used to turn up the drama for Jerry Springer-like effects, with the show’s way of topping itself sure to be conversation fodder for intermission. You wouldn’t think the premise would work, but it does. And there is much joy to be had in watching Kimberly Akimbo, even – or especially – when seeing a Make a Wish gift go terribly, hilariously off the rails.

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Kimberly Akimbo runs July 8-13 at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, MN.

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Amy Donahue

Amy Donahue is a staff reviewer at the Twin Cities Arts Reader. She interned with the magazine during the summer of 2017, served as a guest contributor while studying abroad in Europe that fall, and has moved up to regular old reviewing. She served as interim Editor-in-Chief in 2023.

She admits to being at least 50% terrified of contemporary German opera.