‘Shucked:’ Hardly a-maize-ing, but pleasant in its corny way

'Shucked' runs through June 1 at Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St.

This review by longtime Charlotte arts critic Lawrence Toppman was published by The Charlotte Ledger on May 29, 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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Broadway Lights’ ‘Shucked’ is a popcorn musical that’s lively, clunky and a brainless good time

“Shucked” is set in the fictional Cob County, where the community's corn crop— their primary livelihood — suddenly begins to fail. (Photo courtesy of Blumenthal Arts)

by Lawrence Toppman

What a difference an “a” makes!

Blumenthal Performing Arts proclaims “Shucked,” currently at Belk Theater in the Broadway Lights series, to be “the Tony Award–winning musical comedy.” It did indeed win a Tony award, for best featured actor, in 2023. (“Featured” on Broadway translates to “supporting” at the Oscars.) But it was skunked in the major categories – best musical, book and score — by “Kimberly Akimbo,” which came through earlier this season and left a far stronger impression.

“Shucked” is a popcorn musical: lively, clunky, handsomely presented, good-natured, emotionally uninvolving, well-performed, overlong, heavily larded with jokes about penises and butts, occasionally quite witty yet frequently repeating aged gags from vaudeville and stand-up comedy. (“Your horse came in at twenty to one.” “Well, that’s pretty good!” “The other horses came in at 12:30.”) I had a brainlessly good time I can scarcely remember two hours later, as I write this.

Robert Horn’s book sets the play in Cob County, where high walls of stalks isolate inhabitants from the outside world. They sing about blissful solitude and the endless joys of corn in the opening number, making outrageous puns and concluding with corn’s unique virtue: “It goes in the same as it comes out.” In case you don’t get the idea, they demonstrate gleefully with corncobs.

The score by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally rises above this level from time to time. “Somebody Will,” a ballad of romantic resilience sung by Jake Odmark as cast-aside fiancé Beau, could be a country music hit next week. So could “Independently Owned,” an “I am woman hear me pour” number by moonshine maker Lulu, belted with uproarious self-amusement by Miki Abraham. (This role won Alex Newell the show’s only Tony.) [Edited on 5/29 at 2:15 p.m. to correct the name of Tony winner Alex Newell.]

Director Jack O’Brien presents the generically stompy numbers with maximum energy. Danielle Wade sells the slightly syrupy ballads with maximum warmth as Maizy, who temporarily abandons Beau to save her drought-stricken county. Mike Nappi entertainingly utters nonsense mixed with country wisdom as Beau’s brother, Peanut. Quinn Vanantwerp plays Gordy, the slick equivalent of a patent medicine salesman in this narrative, with laid-back sleaze.

But the whole thing has been put together so haphazardly! A key plot point depends on a car being unable to start without a catalytic converter. (They’ll still run, if pollutingly. I speak from experience.) Maizy ends up in Tampa for no reason and brings back Gordy, misunderstanding the “corn doctor” sign on his podiatry office.

Least believably of all, everyone rejoices when this obviously bogus interloper “cures” one ear of corn — which, equally obviously, comes from a supermarket — yet leaves every other kernel diseased. Then Lulu suddenly falls in love with him because … well, because the script says so.

No matter how silly these sketchy antics got, though, I often laughed at the barrage of jokes. Cob County is “a place where Roe vs. Wade is a debate about the best way to cross a small river.” Or “family is telling someone to go to hell and then worrying they get there safely.”

Or, perhaps my favorite: “That would be a grave mistake.” “No, a grave mistake was burying grandma on a slope.” Ninety minutes later, however, Grandpa announced he’d just been visiting Grandma’s bones in the attic. It’s as if the authors, giggling uncontrollably at their writing table, didn’t proofread their own gags.

If You’re Going: “Shucked” runs through June 1 at Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 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 “Toppman on the Arts” newsletter.

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