By SHARON EBERSON
Justin Cooley speaks in the most humble terms of leap-frogging past college, from high school to Broadway, as a “strange transition.” Most people would call his life of the past four years a series of one amazing transition after another, leading to this Tony Award-nominated role in Kimberly Akimbo.
Cooley, now 21, will be in Pittsburgh starting March 8, 2025, part of his five-city return to the role of Seth Weetis for the first national tour of Kimberly Akimbo, the Tony-winning Best Musical of 2023.
When Cooley arrived from his hometown in Kansas at the Jimmy Awards – the National High School Musical Theatre Awards, in Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre – he had never worked in a scene with an adult, never had a paid job in theater and never performed in a show for more than a week.
He was anticipating that his next transition would be Texas Christian University, for a BFA in musical theater, but, just to be safe, “maybe a dual major, something like accounting,” he was recalling in a recent phone conversation.
Then along came the call of a lifetime.
Kimberly Akimbo was supposed to be a three-month off-Broadway run, opening December 8, 2021. But the show was a hit, with Cooley opposite Victoria Clark, and soared quickly from off-Broadway to the Booth Theatre on Broadway.
Tony Award-winner Clark, whose Broadway career dates to 1985, starred in the title role, as a teenager with progeria, a rare disorder that causes rapid aging. Cooley’s Seth was a standout among a group of Kimberly’s awkward teenage peers in their New Jersey school.
Arriving in New York, Cooley was among four actors, in a cast of nine, making their Broadway debuts.
“Initially, I felt a little skittish, out of my depth and terrified,” Cooley recalled. “I came in as the underdog, but I was welcomed so immensely. I had so much to learn and phases to go through, and people rallied around me.”
Almost every character in Kimberly Akimbo, like the story itself, defies a simple description. For instance, Kimberly’s loving but criminally clueless parents, and her outrageous Aunt Debra, played hilariously on Broadway by Tony-winner Bonnie Milligan.
“She used to break me up on her entrance scene every single day,” Cooley said.
Carnegie Mellon alum Emily Koch plays Debra on tour, while Kimberly is portrayed by Carolee Carmello, who starred as The Witch in Pittsburgh CLO’s 2023 production of Into the Woods. Like many firsts in his young career, this is Cooley’s first time coming to Pittsburgh and first time working with Carmello, whom he has admired from afar through a long Broadway career.
In the case of Kimberly Akimbo, however, he is the veteran. The “akimbo” of the title comes from a name game Seth likes to play.
Listening him describe his character, he has thought this through from deep within himself to what he projects onto audience members.
“I’d say Seth unabashed, curious, forthright and weird, and just a little goofy,” Cooley says. “He’s that kid who has trouble not being himself, for better or worse. I try to channel this energy of all of his little interests, and if you took off the lid and spilled it on everyone, and weren’t ashamed of it, that’s Seth. Playing him at 18 showed me a side of myself, you know, the side you kind of forget about, trying so hard to cover up.”
Seth, being so fully his goofy self, without embarrassment, can be an inspiration to others in the same way the character has been to the young man who portrays him.
His character pursues joy with abandon, despite challenges at home that leave him a little lonely, and are part of the connection Seth makes with Kimberly.
Being so familiar with the role has allowed Cooley some time to see the sights in tour stops in Las Vegas and Omaha, Nebraska, the latter close enough to his hometown that his parents and family and friends were able to attend a performance.
“I think it’s really special getting to take it out on the road,” Cooley says. “I can understand the impact the role has had on my life, but it’s hard to imagine the impact it has on others. I have taken it in and connected with it … and that chapter is closed. But now, there’s the excitement and love of getting to do it again, as a part of something much bigger.”
He was referring to sharing Kimberly Akimbo with audiences outside of the New York City-Broadway bubble. It’s a title that doesn’t roll off the tongue and isn’t as familiar as, say, Some Like It Hot, the show’s top rival for Best Musical and headed here next month in the PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh season.
Kimberly Akimbo moved to Broadway in November of 2022 and stayed through April of last year. The show won five Tonys, including for David Lindsay-Abaire’s book, based on his own play of the same name, and songs by Jeanine Tesori, with lyrics by Lindsay-Abaire (also the team behind Shrek the Musical).
Cooley was already a big fan of Tesori’s Fun Home, her other Tony-winning musical, when he won the role of Seth.
“What I love about Jeanine Tesori, as a composer, is she is able to find every single bit of drama and breadth of humanity. [Her music] doesn’t try to be a song. If a character is unpleasant, or weird, or silly, that’s what it reflects. I love the sincerity of what she writes.”
As an example, Cooley mentions the opening number of Kimberly Akimbo, at a ’90s skating rink in New Jersey, “and it takes you straight to that world and that hopeful longing. Her music is special in that way.”
Cooley has now experienced off-Broadway, Broadway and a national tour, all while exploring one character, in one show. He is ready for the next transition – something’s coming, but he’s not ready to say what just yet. He has signed on with the tour through March 17.
For now, he wants people to get to know Seth and the lovable misfits of Kimberly Akimbo.
“It really is a story about a bunch of people who are not good at life, at making friends, and I think that’s a great part of the story because it is so relatable – we all think we are not good at this,” Cooley said. “But by the end of the story, despite everything, they are able to choose joy. And really, that’s what I want to share with everyone.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS
The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh present Kimberly Akimbo in the Benedum Center, Downtown, March 4-9, 2025. Tickets: visit https://trustarts.org/production/94989/kimberly-akimbo or call 412-456-4800.
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