‘Kimberly Akimbo’ – a musical for all agers
'Kimberly Akimbo' runs through April 27 at Knight Theater
This review by longtime Charlotte arts critic Lawrence Toppman was published by The Charlotte Ledger on April 21, 2025. You can find out more about The Charlotte Ledger’s commitment to smart local news and information and sign up for our newsletter for free here. Ledger subscribers can add the Toppman on the Arts newsletter on their “My Account” page.
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Review: With on-point casting and a rich score, ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ captures the world of a girl growing old before her time
Actress Carolee Carmello, 62, plays the title role of “Kimberly Akimbo,” a 16-year-old who has a condition that causes her to age at four to five times the rate of the average person. (Photo courtesy of Blumenthal Arts)
by Lawrence Toppman
The word “akimbo” implies a posture that communicates defiance or confidence, and 16-year-old Kimberly Levaco faces the world with that attitude in “Kimberly Akimbo.” The adjective can also describe something that’s askew or out of place; that applies to her painfully dysfunctional family and the disease that threatens to kill her on any given day.
Lyricist-author David Lindsay-Abaire, who adapted his 2001 play into this 2021 musical, doesn’t specify what that illness is. Circumstances suggest progeria: Kimberly ages at a rate of four to five times the norm for humanity, her affliction affects one person in 50 million, and she has already reached her average life expectancy.
Yet the opening number tells us the main theme is not oddity or uniqueness but the need we all have in common: To be fully seen and known for what we are. As six teens express anxieties at an ice-skating rink in northern New Jersey, we realize the young people who define Kimberly by her disease are also being defined by others in superficial ways. Like her, they hate it.
Composer Jeanine Tesori has mined this emotional vein in show after show: “Fun Home,” “Caroline, or Change,” “Violet,” even “Shrek: The Musical,” all of which feature leading characters misjudged by people closest to them or the world in general. She peaks in “Akimbo,” which won 2023 Tonys for best musical, book and score. (It’s here in Blumenthal Performing Arts’ Broadway Lights series.)
Tesori’s music offers restrained pathos in unexpected places, including a lovely lullaby for Kimberly’s narcissistic mom, but more often surges along to the sound of Lindsay-Abaire’s funny lyrics. (Rhyming “diva fits” with Leibovitz, as in photographer Annie, caught my ear.) In the end, with death hovering nearby, we walk away smiling.
If we laugh sympathetically with Kimberly (Carolee Carmello) and her would-be boyfriend, nerdy wordsmith Seth (pitch-perfect Miguel Gil), we laugh ruefully or awkwardly at the other main characters. Kimberly’s mother (Laura Woyasz) finds tragedy in Panera’s failure to make her a proper bread bowl; her irresponsible, often drunken father (Jim Hogan) blurts out inappropriate sentiments, including a wish that Kimberly had never been born.
Feckless aunt Debra (Emily Koch), who has committed a series of unspecified crimes and has holed up in the Levaco basement, is cheerfully amoral yet understands Kimberly better than anyone except Seth. (The role has been written for a brassy scene-stealer, and Koch delivers.) The only other characters are four members of a high school show choir, who’ll stop at nothing to defeat hated rivals from the next county; Grace Capeless, Skye Alyssa Friedman, Darron Hayes and Pierce Wheeler harmonize beautifully, even when singing about scurvy and parasitic worm infections.
I suspect Lindsay-Abaire refrained from naming progeria because sufferers look terribly wrinkled and aged, even as little children. Carmello, a well-preserved 62 in real life, bears no such infirmities. Her posture and speaking voice suggest youthful yearning; only the vibrato in her singing voice, a natural result for any older vocalist, hints at Kimberly’s real age. Carmello’s small reactions have a big effect; as other students chatter about ways in which they’ll embrace adulthood, she sits silently, her presence a sad reminder that she won’t be there with them.
In her we get a genuine Broadway star, one who has been nominated for three Tonys and five Drama Desk awards over a 40-year career. People who still hold the outdated notion that nationally touring shows represent a step down in quality from Broadway originals should see “Kimberly Akimbo” to learn how wrong they are.
If You’re Going: “Kimberly Akimbo” runs through April 27 at Knight Theater, 430 S. Tryon St. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday.
Lawrence Toppman covered the arts for 40 years at The Charlotte Observer before retiring in 2020. Now, he’s back in the critic’s chair for the Charlotte Ledger — look for his reviews several times each month in the Charlotte Ledger’s Toppman on the Arts newsletter.
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