It only took me only seconds to fall madly in love with Kimberly Akimbo at the Pantages. No wonder then that David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori’s tuneful, touching adaptation of the former’s outrageously funny, deeply moving play of the same name won five 2023 Tonys including the big one, Best Musical.

Broadway great Carolee Carmello stars as Kimberly Levaco, an about-to-turn-16-year-old who’s got more on her plate than your average teen.

After all, how many teenagers do you know who are saddled with an alcoholic dad, a malady-plagued mom, and a con artist of an aunt?

And how many of them not only suffer from all of the above but live inside a body that’s aging at supersonic speed, so quickly in fact that Kim’s upcoming sixteenth birthday may well be her last?

All of the above could just as easily have added up to a family tearjerker a la Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-awarded Rabbit Hole, but the 2023 Best Book Tony winner packs in far more laughs than tears as Kimberly confronts her not-so-perfect life as only she can.

Pregnant mom Pattie (Dana Steingold) may be recovering from a broken leg and carpal tunnel surgery on her hands, and dad Buddy (Jim Hogan) may drink more than “a few beers” before heading home to a nagging wife and a daughter who might not be around all that much longer, but Kim’s got school friends who support her, and better still, she’s just met a boy.

The boy in question is geeky classmate Seth (Miguel Gil), who works part-time at the local ice skating rink where Kimberly and her show choir buds Delia (Grace Capeless), Teresa (Skye Alyssa Friedman), Martin (Darron Hayes), and Aaron (Pierce Wheeler) are wont to hang, and given that the school band tuba player is as square a peg as Kimberly is where it comes to fitting into popular kids’ round holes, Kim and Seth may well be a match made in heaven.

Completing Kimberly Akimbo’s cast of oddball characters is Kim’s wayward Aunt Debra (Emily Koch), who arrives in town garbage bag in hand and fresh from a few months of living in a squat, if fresh can describe a woman who’s done time in jail and now calls the public library her home.

Having convinced Pattie to let her crash under the Levaco roof for a while, Debra soon reveals to Kimberly her real reason for the family visit (and for the two large bottles of chemicals and the full-sized U.S. Postal Service mailbox she’s dragged down into the Levaco basement).

She’s concocted a foolproof money-making scam, and all she needs is Kim and her friends’ help to pull it off.

If I was already a fan of Kimberly Akimbo as a play, I’m even more enamored of its musical adaptation.

Tesori’s songs may not be as gorgeous as the ones she wrote for Violet or as catchy as her Thoroughly Modern Millie score, but they fit this particular musical to a T with quirky yet tuneful melodies and clever, funny lyrics

Book writer Lindsay-Abaire is smart enough not to futz with success, hewing closely to his play’s plotlines, the only major change between play and musical being the inspired addition of Kimberly’s classmates (each in unrequited love with another), who not only flesh out her away-from-home environment but allow choreographer Danny Mefford to integrate show choir-style moves whenever the foursome provide impromptu Greek chorus-style backup along the way.

Under Jessica Stone’s incisive direction, a dazzling Carmello never lets us forget that she’s a sixteen-year-old high school girl who’s living her life the best she can (and thoroughly enjoying the attention she’s being paid by the socially awkward but entirely first-kissable Seth), and voices don’t get much more gorgeous than Carmello’s.

Hogan and Steingold are delightfully pitch-perfect as Kim’s decidedly flawed parents and Koch steals every scene she’s in as the ballsy, brassy Aunt Debra.

Gil is so goofy a curly-haired charmer, it’s no wonder Kimberly is smitten, and Capeless, Friedman, Hayes, and Wheeler make for the most adorable and winning of impossibly lovestruck teens. (That all five look like actual teenagers is an added plus.)

A crackerjack production design team—David Zinn (sets), Sarah Laux (costumes), Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (lighting), J. Jared James (hair, wig, and makeup), and Lucy Mackinnon (video design)—give Kimberly Akimbo the Grade-A look audiences have come to expect from Broadway National Tours, and the show sounds fabulous too thanks to music director Leigh Delano and the production’s nine-piece orchestra, kudos shared by sound designer Kai Harada.

Casting is by The Telsey Office, Craig Burns, CSA. Sarah Lynn Marion, Regene Seven Odon, Marcus Phillips, Railey Ryon, and Brandon Springman are swings. Valerie Wright is Kimberly standby.

Shawn Pennington is production stage manager and Candace Hemphill is company manager.

While recent Best Musical Tony winners like Hamilton, Hadestown, and Moulin Rouge! have proven there’s still room for flashy, big-cast spectacle on Broadway, others like Fun Home, Dear Evan Hansen, and now Kimberly Akimbo make it equally clear that smaller, character-based shows can more than compete with their splashier counterparts.

As out-and-out funny as it is deeply affecting, Kimberly Akimbo ought to top any musical theater lover’s list of fall must-sees. I’d see it again in a heartbeat.

Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles. Through November 3. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 7:30 Fridays at 8:00. Saturdays at 2:00 and 8:00. Sundays at 1:00 and 6:30.
www.broadwayla.org

–Steven Stanley
October 16, 2024
Photos: Joan Marcua

Tags: Broadway In Hollywood, David Lindsay-Abaire, Jeanine Tesori, Los Angeles Theater Review, Pantages Theatre