THEATRE PREVIEW

APRIL 2026 | Volume 262

 

Tony Award-winning Kimberly Akimbo is a modest show as Broadway-style musicals go, with a full cast of only nine including a four-person chorus, relatively nondescript music and no big dance numbers. But its offbeat story, vivid supporting characters and clever lyrics make it easy to like. Arts Club artistic director Ashlie Corcoran takes full advantage of the show’s virtues and delivers a funny, admirable production with a range of outstanding performances.

The story centres on 16-year-old Kimberly Levaco (Lisa Horner), who suffers from a very rare disease that causes her to age four to five times faster than normal, so she looks about 70 and has a life-expectancy of around 20. Kimberly and her outrageously awful proletarian parents—drunken dad Buddy (Josh Epstein) and pregnant, emotionally abusive mom Pattie (Steffanie Davis)—have recently moved to this New Jersey town from another in the state. (This is the second Arts Club play in a row full of New Jersey jokes that never quite land.)

The new kid in school, used to being the odd girl out, Kimberly falls in with a geeky group of fellow outcasts who hang out at a skating rink, sing in the school choir and have unrequited crushes on each other (Sarah Cantuba, Angella Cody, Joaquin Little and James Ross). Kim is especially attracted to nerdy Seth (Jason Sakaki), who announces at the rink, plays the tuba and appears entirely unfazed by her appearance.

For much of the show Kimberly herself is a relatively passive figure around whom the action circles. Near the end she takes centre stage, willing to risk everything to “have a moment” and get her wished-for road trip as her life-expectancy approaches its endpoint. Horner, a lot closer to 70 than to 16, does a fine job playing a teenager who ironically has to act the adult to compensate for her immature parents. She never exhibits self-pity and her vocals are solid, if not spectacular.

The show really takes off with the arrival of Kim’s criminal aunt Debra (Madeleine Suddaby), who enlists the kids in a scheme to steal cheques from mailboxes and cash them.Suddaby’s Debra is lively, crude, straightforwardly crooked and very funny. She has a great voice, and her knockout song about wanting to make her crappy life better resonates with all the characters—the outcasts, the nerds, the poor.

Sakaki delivers the other best performance. His Seth, who specializes in clever anagrams, is utterly lovable in his sympathy and care for Kimberly, which never gets sappy. He even manages to play a couple of bars on the tuba.

Epstein and Davis, as Kim’s parents, have the toughest job. Larger-than-life vulgar and cruel, they make their family arguments brutally nasty. Yet they manage to remain comically likable, if not sympathetic. Davis has some powerful vocal moments.

Although the show lacks dance numbers per se, choreographer Shelley Stewart Hunt keeps everyone moving rhythmically during the songs, and the foursome of choir kids injects dance energy and nice harmonies into all their scenes. Credit musical director Caitlin Hayes and her seven-piece orchestra for the full sound along with sound designer Kate De Lorme for the clarity.

The frequent use of four-letter words seems surprising for a musical, as does the casual, unchallenged commission of felonies by the main characters. I found the mixture of naturalism with musical fantasy (the final number, sung by the company, is called “Great Adventure”) somewhat jarring. But the theatrical alchemy of clever writing and a strong production somehow makes it all work. And delivers another musical winner for the Arts Club.

 

 

 

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