Kimberly Akimbo (musical)

Based on Wikipedia: Kimberly Akimbo (musical)

A Teenage Girl Trapped in an Old Woman's Body

What would it mean to be sixteen years old and know, with near certainty, that you won't live to see seventeen?

This is the premise at the heart of Kimberly Akimbo, a Broadway musical that swept the 2023 Tony Awards and left audiences both weeping and strangely uplifted. The show tells the story of Kimberly Levaco, a teenager suffering from a condition similar to progeria—a rare genetic disorder that causes accelerated aging. While her classmates worry about prom dates and college applications, Kimberly inhabits a body that looks elderly, with a life expectancy that makes each day a kind of borrowed miracle.

But here's what makes the show remarkable: it's not a tragedy. Or rather, it refuses to be only a tragedy.

The Strange Journey from Play to Musical

The story began as a play, written by David Lindsay-Abaire and first performed in 2001 at the South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California. Lindsay-Abaire has a particular gift for finding comedy in dark places—his other works include Rabbit Hole, about parents grieving a child's death, which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He's drawn to characters navigating impossible situations with a kind of stubborn, dark-humored grace.

The original play moved Off-Broadway in 2003, featuring a young John Gallagher Jr.—who would later win a Tony Award himself for Spring Awakening—and Ana Gasteyer, known to many from her years on Saturday Night Live. The production earned respect but didn't become a cultural phenomenon.

Then, two decades later, Lindsay-Abaire returned to his creation with a collaborator: composer Jeanine Tesori.

Tesori is something of a legend in musical theater circles. She composed the scores for Thoroughly Modern Millie, Caroline, or Change, Shrek the Musical, and Fun Home—the last of which earned her a Tony nomination and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. She has a talent for writing music that sounds simultaneously contemporary and timeless, songs that land emotionally without becoming saccharine.

Lindsay-Abaire and Tesori had worked together before, on Shrek the Musical, so they knew each other's rhythms. But Kimberly Akimbo required something different—not the broad comedy of an animated ogre, but something more delicate, a story where the laughs had to coexist with genuine heartbreak.

The World of Bergen County

The musical opens at "Skater Planet," an ice skating rink in Bergen County, New Jersey. If you're not from the New York metropolitan area, Bergen County might not mean much to you. It's a sprawling suburban county just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, full of strip malls and chain restaurants and families who moved out of the city for more space. It's the kind of place where teenagers feel trapped by its ordinariness, certain that real life is happening somewhere else.

Six teenagers gather at the rink, each nursing private miseries. There's Kimberly, the new girl with the impossible disease. There's Seth, who works at the rink and carries a tuba and feels like he doesn't quite fit anywhere. And there are four others—Martin, Aaron, Delia, and Teresa—caught in a perfect square of unrequited love. Martin pines for Aaron, who wants Delia, who's fixated on Teresa, who can only see Martin. It's a mathematical nightmare of teenage longing.

Together, they sing "Skater Planet," a number about wanting to "be seen"—that particular adolescent ache of feeling invisible even when you're surrounded by people.

A Family Running from Something

Kimberly's home life is, to put it mildly, complicated.

Her father Buddy is an alcoholic, perpetually late and frequently drunk. Her mother Pattie is pregnant, mysteriously has casts on both arms, and creates video messages for her unborn child with a desperate optimism that masks something darker. The family has recently moved from Lodi, New Jersey—another Bergen County town—under circumstances they're clearly trying to hide.

There's a "swear jar" in the house that fills up rapidly. Buddy suggests that when it's full, they could use it for a road trip. Pattie shoots this down immediately. In this family, even small dreams are dangerous.

Into this dysfunction crashes Aunt Debra, Pattie's sister, a cheerfully amoral criminal who has been literally sleeping in the school library while hunting for her relatives. Debra has a scheme—she always has a scheme—involving stolen checks and mail fraud. She needs Kimberly's help. She also needs the help of those four heartbroken teenagers from the skating rink.

The scheme is, as Debra puts it, "only slightly illegal."

Check Washing: A Primer

The crime at the center of Kimberly Akimbo is check washing, and the show actually stages a musical number—"How to Wash a Check"—that explains the process in delightful detail.

Check washing is exactly what it sounds like. Criminals steal checks from mailboxes (hence the need for a stolen mailbox in the Levaco basement), then use chemicals to remove the original ink while leaving the signature intact. They can then rewrite the check for larger amounts, payable to themselves or accomplices. It's fraud, and it's a federal crime, but Debra presents it with the enthusiasm of a home economics teacher sharing a favorite recipe.

The teenagers prove terrible at it initially—Aaron gets his arm stuck in the mailbox, Teresa gets a glue trap stuck to her head—until Debra compares them unfavorably to their show choir rivals from West Orange. Suddenly, their competitive instincts kick in, and they master the technique.

Seth, the tuba-playing nice guy, has a solo afterward called "Good Kid," in which he wrestles with his conscience. He's always been the rule-follower, the one who does the right thing. Now he's a criminal. But he's doing it for Kimberly, and maybe, he decides, "a little bad could do a lot of good."

The Weight of Sixteen

The show's emotional center arrives on Kimberly's sixteenth birthday.

For most teenagers, sixteen is a milestone of possibility—driver's licenses, new freedoms, the sense that adulthood is approaching. For Kimberly, sixteen is the life expectancy for people with her condition. Every day past this point is a kind of overtime, a bonus round she never expected to play.

Seth organizes a surprise birthday party at Skater Planet, inviting not just the teenagers but Kimberly's entire chaotic family. Buddy and Pattie each offer gifts in the form of promises: he'll stop drinking, she'll be a better mother. These promises feel simultaneously touching and doomed—we've seen enough of this family to know how they handle good intentions.

Debra gives Kimberly an extremely large pinecone. It's the kind of gift that's so absurd it somehow becomes perfect.

The Truth About Lodi

The musical's dramatic revelation comes during a family dinner that spirals into chaos.

We learn why the Levacos fled Lodi. Buddy, it turns out, paid Debra to beat up their old neighbor, Mr. Zwicky. The reason? Pattie had slept with Zwicky, hoping to conceive a child who wouldn't carry Kimberly's disease. The affair was an act of desperation—a mother trying to give her next child a chance at a normal life. Buddy's response was to arrange violence.

Zwicky died during the assault. Not from the beating itself, but from a heart attack brought on by fear.

So the family fled, hoping to escape the consequences. They moved to a new town in the same county, as if a few miles of distance could outrun what they'd done. And now Debra has tracked them down, dragging her check-washing scheme into their precarious new life.

During this revelation, Kimberly collapses. The stress, the disease, the accumulated weight of being sixteen in a body that's already failing—it all becomes too much.

The Hospital and the Escape

Three days later, Kimberly wakes up in a hospital bed. Her parents have been there constantly, and Debra finally convinces them to go home and rest. Before leaving, Pattie tells Kimberly—who is pretending to sleep—that the Make-A-Wish Foundation has agreed to build her a treehouse.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation, for those unfamiliar, is a nonprofit organization that grants wishes to children with critical illnesses. They're known for sending kids to Disney World or arranging meetings with celebrities. A treehouse is a more modest request, but it's what Kimberly wanted. Or thought she wanted.

Once her parents leave, Seth arrives with an armload of things to cheer her up. But Kimberly doesn't want comfort. She wants to live. Really live, in whatever time she has left.

She wants to do the check fraud scheme.

Together, they leave the hospital. Debra reviews the plan one more time. Kimberly disguises herself as an elderly woman—which, given her appearance, isn't much of a stretch—and they execute the crime. It works.

The Road to Six Flags

Kimberly comes home with a bag of money and tells her parents they can finally take that road trip. They should start packing.

But when she goes to her room, she discovers they've already removed her bed. In its place is a crib for the new baby. It's a practical choice, perhaps, but it lands like a blow—her parents are already preparing for her absence, already making room for the child who will replace her.

They fight. And in that fight, Kimberly says something essential: she asks her parents to give up who they wanted her to be before she dies. Stop hoping she'll get better. Stop pretending things are normal. Let her be who she actually is, a dying girl who wants to see the world.

She writes a new letter to Make-A-Wish, thanking them for the treehouse but explaining she doesn't need it anymore. She's going to see the world herself.

The final scene finds Kimberly and Seth in Buddy's car at Six Flags Great Adventure—the theme park in Jackson, New Jersey that Kimberly mentioned wanting to visit in the very first scene. They're on a road trip now, funded by their share of the check fraud money (plus Debra's share, which they stole). They have the video camera. They have each other.

Kimberly records a message for her unborn sister, asking Seth to make sure the baby gets it someday. Then they kiss.

The Final Number

The show ends with "Great Adventure," a company number that brings back all the characters: the four teenagers in their show choir outfits (blue dresses, turquoise suits), Debra (now working at Costco, apparently having found legitimate employment), Buddy and Pattie with their new baby, and Kimberly and Seth somewhere on their journey.

The message is direct: live life fully, because "no one gets a second time around."

It could be trite. In lesser hands, it would be. But after everything we've seen—the dysfunction, the crime, the hospital, the desperate love—it lands as earned wisdom. Kimberly isn't preaching from a position of innocence. She's someone who has seen exactly how messy and painful and imperfect life can be, and she's choosing joy anyway.

The Awards and the Recognition

The musical premiered Off-Broadway in December 2021 at the Linda Gross Theater, produced by the Atlantic Theater Company. The run was short—just over a month—but the critical response was overwhelming.

Victoria Clark, who played Kimberly, is herself a Tony Award winner (for The Light in the Piazza in 2005). She was in her sixties when she took on the role of a sixteen-year-old, and she made it work through sheer commitment and a kind of ageless vulnerability. Justin Cooley, as Seth, was making his professional debut. Bonnie Milligan, as Aunt Debra, brought manic energy to every scene she touched.

The Off-Broadway production won Best Musical at the Drama Desk Awards, the Lucille Lortel Awards, and the Outer Critics Circle Awards—a sweep that suggested something special was happening.

In November 2022, the show moved to Broadway's Booth Theatre with the same cast and creative team (except for the lighting designer, who was replaced). It opened to rave reviews and went on to receive eight Tony nominations, winning five: Best Musical, Best Book, Best Original Score, Best Leading Actress (Clark), and Best Featured Actress (Milligan).

The Broadway production closed in April 2024 after 612 performances—a respectable run, especially for a show without a famous source material or celebrity casting.

Life After Broadway

Like most successful musicals, Kimberly Akimbo has begun spreading outward from its Broadway origins.

A national tour launched in September 2024, starting at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Carolee Carmello—another Broadway veteran, known for roles in Parade, Lestat, and Tuck Everlasting—took on the title role. She played her final performance in July 2025, with Ann Morrison taking over afterward.

The show is heading to Canada, with productions announced for Montreal's Segal Centre (November-December 2025) and Toronto's CAA Theatre (January-February 2026). Louise Pitre, who originated the role of Donna in the original Toronto production of Mamma Mia!, will star.

Vancouver's Arts Club Theatre Company will present a regional production in spring 2026. And London—always a crucial market for American musicals—will see its premiere at the Hampstead Theatre in late 2026.

What Makes It Work

There are many musicals about death and dying, from Rent to Tuck Everlasting to Next to Normal. What distinguishes Kimberly Akimbo is its refusal to be solemn.

The show features a check-washing tutorial set to music. It has a running gag about unrequited love forming a perfect quadrilateral. It includes Aunt Debra, a character so cheerfully criminal that she becomes almost heroic. Even the family's darkest secret—a man beaten to death over an affair—is revealed in a scene that mixes horror with pitch-black comedy.

And yet the emotional moments land. When Kimberly sings about her disease, about being trapped in a body that betrays her, we feel it. When Seth decides to be "a little bad" for someone he loves, we understand. When the family fights and reconciles and fights again, it feels true to how families actually work.

The genius of the show is that it trusts its audience to hold multiple feelings at once. We can laugh at Debra's schemes while recognizing that she's enabling a dying girl to have an adventure. We can be appalled by Buddy's violence while understanding his pain. We can know that Kimberly's road trip is funded by crime and still want her to have it.

Life, the show suggests, doesn't sort itself into neat categories of good and bad, tragic and comic. It's all of it, all at once, and the only reasonable response is to keep moving forward, keep choosing joy, keep looking for the great adventure.

Even when—especially when—time is running out.