A teenage girl lounges in bed, writing a letter to Make a Wish Foundation punctuated with smiley and frowny faces. She refers to documentation of her short life expectancy, then trails off into a musical “do do do do.” It’s a little moment that catches you off guard – this girl knows she’s going to die young; what’s with the sudden whimsy? Much of “Kimberly Akimbo,” which plays at West Herr Auditorium Theatre through March 29, catches the audience off guard. The national tour of the Tony-award winning, feel-good musical comedy about disease and family dysfunction is part of the 2025-2026 M&T Bank Broadway Season, presented by RBTL & Albert Nocciolino.
Set in 1999, the show opens in a New Jersey ice rink where the misfit teens go for fun. We meet a group of high schoolers not cool enough for the mall, caught in a Shakespearean tangle of an unrequited love square. They get distracted from their pining for each other long enough to side-eye the aging woman skating alone.
It’s immediately clear there’s something unusual about this new outsider, the titular Kimberly. She’s nimble, a little nasally and petulant when her ride is late to pick her up. When ice rink employee Seth asks her to be his partner for their high school science class presentation on a disease, the strangeness is explained: Kimberly has a rare genetic disorder that causes her to age four or five times faster than typical. She may look like she qualifies for senior discounts, but in reality she’s about to turn 16 – which happens to be the average life expectancy for those with her disorder.
What a challenging, juicy role for an older performer, and Ann Morrison nails it. She commands Kimberly’s quirks and big emotions, capturing the desperation of a teenager forced to grow up too fast. Morrison is no stranger to Rochester – in fact, one might argue she has the city to thank for her Broadway break. Her lead performance in Geva Theatre musical in 1981 caught the eye of a director working on a new show by the legendary Stephen Sondheim. She went directly from Geva to originate the role of Mary in his beloved Broadway flop “Merrily We Roll Along.”
Morrison sets the bar high, which the rest of the cast happily meets. The ensemble of show choir-loving teens (Gabby Beredo, Darron Hayes, Max Santopietro and understudy Sabrina Shah, returning to the role she held on Broadway) are spunky and lovable, a ripe cast for a reboot of “Glee.” As Kimberly’s first friend and love interest Seth, Marcus Phillips is particularly endearing as a neurodivergent-coded tuba playing, Elvish-speaking Junior Wordsmith of America.
When not at school, Kimberly struggles with her outlandishly dysfunctional family. One would be forgiven for thinking that perhaps her well-intentioned but forgetful alcoholic father, played by Jim Hogan (a third of the TikTok-famous a capella trio T.3), has the same genetic disease, as he acts even more childish than Kimberly. Her hypochondriac mother, played with a princess-like entitlement by Laura Woyasz, makes dramatic home videos for her unborn child. Most chaotic of all is her aunt Debra, played by vocal powerhouse Emily Koch, who comes to New Jersey eager to exploit a group of minors for her latest get-rich-quick scheme.
The story takes bizarre, unexpected turns — a treat when many musicals of similar budget constraints play it safe with familiar pop songs or recognizable source material. “Kimberly Akimbo” started as an original play written by Pulitzer-prize winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire (“Rabbit Hole”), who then adapted his story for the 2021 musical with a score by Tony-award winner Jeanine Tesori (“Fun Home,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie”). These two prolific and versatile artists also collaborated on the musical adaptation of “Shrek.”
Many songs feel like monologues set to upbeat music, disregarding a conventional rhyme scheme or catchy chorus in favor of following how a character would naturally talk. They might not be songs you leave the theatre humming, but they create striking and emotionally complex musical scenes: a razzle-dazzle explanation of scurvy, for example, or a ditty about how to commit check fraud.
The visually busy world of “Kimberly Akimbo” evokes the energy of its ‘90s teens, who describe themselves as “too loud and too chipper.” The set design by David Zinn jumps from Kimberly’s home, where the wallpaper pattern feels like a color blind test, to the sleek ice rink to her school library and hallways. Costume design by Sarah Laux has the characters in layers with plaid, stripes and bold colors. Everything is bright and textured, even as the characters grapple with disease, dysfunction and death.
“Kimberly Akimbo” is a strange, delicately balanced gift of a musical. It’s full of earnest optimism without feeling hokey or naïve. It proclaims “life is short!” without feeling trite or cliché. It takes elements you think you know — coming-of-age, first love, family drama, mortality — and, like one of Seth’s anagrams, rearranges them to offer something fresh and surprising. Off-kilter and bittersweet, “Kimberly Akimbo” is an emotional roller coaster guaranteed to break, then mend, the hearts of anyone along for the ride.
“Kimberly Akimbo” plays through March 29 at West Herr Auditorium Theatre. More info and tickets here.
Katherine Varga is a Rochester-based writer and arts educator. On an ideal day, you’ll find her biking to a library or theater.
