By SHARON EBERSON
NEW YORk, N.Y. — Picture this: Shubert Alley, in the heart of Times Square. At one end, there’s the 1,500-seat Shubert Theatre on 44th Street, across the street from Sardi’s. On the 45th Street side, the 766-seat Booth Theatre. Opened in 1913, the theaters were designed as “one seamless unit.”
Now, think of each side representing a polar opposite musical, and you have some idea of what it’s like to see Some Like It Hot and Kimberly Akimbo on back-to-back nights.
If it helps, think back to 2004, when Tony Award rivals Wicked and Avenue Q first ruled Broadway, and you might get a sense of how widely different and wildly appealing these shows are.
Christian Borle and J. Harrison Ghee go on the lam in Broadway’s Some Like It Hot, (Image by Marc J. Franklin)
Some Like It Hot is the pull-out-all-the-stops production, with all the belting and tapping and glitzy glam you could ask for, plus a song (“Let’s Be Bad”) borrowed from TV’s late, lamented Smash.
I know there are some who will decry what they see as excesses, but can you have too much of a good thing? Do I say no when Bruce Springsteen, after four hours of rocking an arena, asks, “Do you want more?” Heck yes, I want more!
Also, that leaves plenty of room for a gem such as Kimberly Akimbo to slip into a Broadway setting. The little (in size only) musical arrived from off-Broadway after building a foundation of adoring fans, including the most hard-boiled New York critics.
Bonnie Milligan, center, as devilish Debra in Kimberly Akimbo on Broadway.
(Image by Joan Marcus)
Some Like It Hot is an old-timey crowd-pleaser, painted with modern brush strokes and undeniable star power. You can picture it as a PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh staple, then becoming a favorite of companies like Pittsburgh CLO. Kimberly Akimbo is of the type I’d expect to see at Front Porch Theatricals (what a role Kimberly would be for Becki Toth!), much in the way that company took on the first regional production of Fun Home.
Here’s a look at performances of these two shows, seen back to back during the first week in February.
Kevin Del Aguila and the cast of Some Like It Hot. (MarcJ. Franklin)
Some Like It Hot
Shubert Theatre, 225 W 44th St New York, NY
This show’s built-in fan base starts with its 1959 cinematic predecessor, which the American Film Institute rates as the No. 1 movie comedy of all time. The musical version gets a modern-day Matthew Lopez-Amber Ruffin bump – not a complete makeover – to its story line, and has a starry team from the top down. Producers include Mariah Carey, who visited the day after I was there.
Getting things off to a hot start is Sweet Sue (the divine NaTasha Yvette Williams), who is the leader of the all-female band the Society Syncopators. She asks the question, “What Are You Thirsty For?,” and later has the lead in the title song – an earworm that takes me back to the first time I heard Shaiman-Wittman’s “Good Morning, Baltimore” from Hairspray.
Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s lively score pulls from 1930s-era popular music and, with an ambitiously detailed book, gives director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw plenty to mold into a rollicking good time.
Some Like It Hot reunites Nicholaw with one of his Spamalot and Something Rotten! stars, Fox Chapel native, Carnegie Mellon alum and two-time Tony winner Christian Borle, last seen on Broadway as Willie Wonka in 2017’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He took a detour off-Broadway as the sadistic dentist in Little Shop of Horrors, but it’s also nice to have him back where he belongs, in the driver’s seat of a big, bold new musical.
Co-lead J. Harrison Ghee is firing on all cylinders as Jerry/Daphne, along with a sweet leading lady in Adrianna Hicks as Sugar, played by Marilyn Monroe in the film.
In this story, Borle and Ghee’s Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in the movie) consider themselves brothers in all ways except DNA. Ghee is a triple-threat, 6-foot-4 performer who Pittsburghers may recall as Lola in the national tour of KInky Boots (the second time around, after Billy Porter’s appearance here.)
They are a Mutt-and-Jeff pair, both a sight gag and a plot point. Borle, in fact, gets “additional material” writing credit, which may account for a running gag about his looks and age as a woman.
The short of the story, dating to Billy Wilder’s original version, is that two male musicians witness a mob murder and go on the lam in drag, joining a group of touring female musicians.
It was immediately evident to two Pittsburghers – me and my companion – that, as a woman, Borle employs a yinzer accent. He also takes on the identity of a writer who is in town shooting a movie, in order to get close to Sugar. Sparks fly, of course.
Ghee, meanwhile, has a revelatory transformation as Daphne, finding both the wardrobe and female friendships suit them to a T. Their character is pursued by root beer magnate Osgood Fielding III – Kevin Del Aguila, who is an absolute hoot and gets a back story that gives reason and pathos to his wackiness.
Del Aguila, for me, was the plum in the pudding, over the top in ways that surprise and delight.
As girl-band singer Sugar, Hicks, fresh from the Broadway company of Six, isn’t looking for love. She is hoping to be noticed by Hollywood types as the band rolls into Fielding’s California resort.
Adrianna Hicks and J. Harrison Ghee, front and center, with the cast
of Some Like It Hot on Broadway. (Image by Matthew Murphy)
The ensemble of Some Like It Hot gets a workout with enough high-voltage numbers for two musicals. Nicholaw and Co. have left nothing on the cutting-room floor.
Borle, who I don’t think of as a dancer, has a tap number with Ghee that shows off unexpected moves. Ghee gets the showiest numbers and delivers a powerful “I am what I am” number with the unlikely title, “You Could’ve Knocked Me Over With a Feather.”
Both these performances would seem to be bound for Tony nominations in the best actor in a musical category, although Ghee identifies as nonbinary. (Nominations will be announced May 2.)
Scott Pask’s art deco-drenched set design includes a train that takes the band west – with bad guys in hot pursuit.
I could go on, it was so much flashy, good-ol’ fashioned fun, including tons of Gregg Barnes’ period costumes fit for an End of Prohibition party.
Some Like It Hot is a musical the way they used to make ’em, with award-worthy performances and tweaks that enhance a cinema classic’s sense and sensibilities for modern audiences.
I saw Some Like It Hot on my first night in New York after three long years away, the first of four shows in three days, and it felt like a warm welcome embrace on the one hand, and, on the other, a declaration that Broadway is back.
The teens of Kimberly Akimbo, from left, Michael Iskander (front, leaning), Justin Cooley, Victoria Clark, Fernell Hogan and Olivia Elease Hardy. (Joan Marcus)
Kimberly Akimbo
Booth Theatre, 222 W 45th St, New York, NY.
Just down the alleyway from Some Like It Hot, a relatively modest but thoroughly original show is heaping on all the feels.
Kimberly Akimbo features a nine-person cast with a bona-fide star in Victoria Clark, and Steven Boyer of Hand to God fame. The source material comes from a play written in 2000 by David Lindsay-Abaire, which he has adapted as book writer and lyricist of the musical. The show also reteams him with his Shrek the Musical collaborator, composer Jeanine Tesori.
The popular transfer from off-Broadway, where it earned raves, tells a tale that would seem to be unlikely musical fodder: Kimberly is a teenager with a rare disease that has her aging 4+ years for every one year of life, to a point where she is not expected to live past the age of 20, at best.
But this is not your typical disease-of-the-week story. Not by a long shot. The revelation, for me, is that she comes from a family of ne’er-do-wells, trying to navigate this hand they’ve been dealt as parents, and often failing.
As Kimberly is about to turn 16 and moves to a new high school, she finds a second family in the school’s nerdy misfits – in particular, Seth, a boy obsessed with anagrams. And honestly, you can’t possibly guess what will happen next. I had the good fortune to be introduced to Kimberly Akimbo without much background research – a rarity for me – much of it took me by surprise, something I can’t say many shows do these days.
It has to be said up front that Bonnie Milligan alone, as Kimberly’s conniving aunt, with a big, brassy belt to boot, is worth the price of admission. She embroils the kids in a scheme that, in the hands of Lindsay-Abaire and this cast, is both awful and hilarious.
Justin Cooley as Seth shares his anagrams in Kimberly Akimbo. (Joan Marcus)
Broadway newcomer Justin Cooley, who plays the awkward, love-starved Seth, was a finalist at the Jimmys – the national high school musical theater awards – in 2021. For his role in Kimberly Akimbo, starting off-Broadway, he already is the recipient of Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Antonyo nominations.
Cooley’s Seth gives an accounting of what it means to be the “Good Kid” in a plaintive song, among the best in show, that explains who he has been, but wonders, “What has it gotten me?”
The anagrams at Seth’s disposable are both silly and insightful, playing out over the course of the show and in a duet with Clark, “My Blacker Olive,” that seals their mutual crush. As Kimberly expresses it, “I like the way you understand. / I like the way you think / A little weird, a little wise, / A little out of sync.”
The same could be said for the quartet of teenage outsiders who eventually rally around Kimberly.
Like Cooley, also making their Broadway debuts are Olivia Elease Hardy, Michael Iskander (Jimmys, 2019) and Nina White. The fourth member of the group of “goody-goodies,” Fernell Hogan, appeared in The Prom on Broadway.
While the kids are potentially being led down a dark path, the adults are already stuck there.
As her Kimberly’s alcoholic father, Boyer at least tries to mend his ways for his daughter’s sake, while his uber-pregnant wife, Pattie (Alli Mauzey), has both hands in casts from carpal tunnel surgery, and is pretty much glued to the couch.
They often leave Kimberly not only on her own, but expect her to be the responsible adult of the family. She is 16 on the inside, a 60-something-year-old woman on the outside, and, despite her own health issues, often a caretaker for her family.
Did I mention that this story about a dying teen also is laugh-out-loud funny?
The relationships among the four teens – musical theater nerds, naturally – takes a few twists and turns that will be recognizable to anyone who has ever been part of a close-knit group. When their budget is cut for the costumes in their high school musical, they are willing to do whatever it takes to raise funds.
Through it all, there is Clark, a woman on the outside, a teen on the inside and an unwavering vocal talent that brought her a best actress Tony for A Light in the Piazza. With a four-decade Broadway career under her belt, Clark has the presence to command attention even in Kimberly’s quiet, contemplative moments. She keeps it real, even when Kimberly’s life goes off the rails.
The costumes and sets – a skating rink, inside and out, the high school lockers and library, Kimberly’s home – are mostly drab and undistinguished, in contrast to the often kooky inhabitants who occupy the space.
Victoria Clark as Kimberly, center, with Alli Mauzey and Steven Boyer. (Joan Marcus)
Mauzey’s Pattie, a mom and mom-to-be, records her hopes and frustrations for the child she is expecting, while Boyer’s Buddy fully functions as that barstool regular, the one who will bet on anything and come out the loser, one way or another.
They are a pair, these two. Even when they have good intentions, you wonder how the folks at social services haven’t found them out. And as for Milligan’s deliciously devilish Aunt Debra? She’s a crime waiting to happen, and steals every scene she is in. You have to wonder where Debra was when consciences were given out, but you may be glad hers is missing.
Tesori’s score, with Linday-Abaire’s lyrics, most often works to tug at the heartstrings. Debra, with the kids as a chorus, delivers the wanting song “Better,” which turns out to be an obscenity-laced confessional.
By contrast, it is when they are singing that you most believe Buddy and Pattie truly would like to be better versions of themselves.
Kimberly Akimbo has been a critical and audience darling since it reached Broadway. We met one fan, working at the TKTS Booth, who said he was going to be at the show the same night we were – for the sixth time.
Much ado has been made – including by me – about the “size” of the show, in that it is comparable to small-scale casts such as 21st-century Tony-winning musicals Avenue Q, Fun Home, Dear Evan Hansen, The Band’s Visit and A Strange Loop. Size does matter if, big or small, it’s a perfect fit to the material. In this case, Some Like It Hot and Kimberly Akimbo, two Broadway musicals that have little in common except proximity, get the fit just right.
COMING SOON: Reviews of the plays The Collaboration, the Warhol-Basquiat story being made into a movie with stars Paul Bettany and Jeremy Pope, and the Tom Stoppard autobiographical work Leopoldstadt.
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