(upbeat music)
- So glad you could be here
for another great episode of The Broadway Show.
I'm Tamsen Fadal.
Let's get started.
Okay. So this is one
of the most anticipated musicals
of the new Broadway season.
It's Kimberly Akimbo.
It's a story of a 16 year old girl
who has a rare and fictional rapid aging disease.
Imagine teen angst while living in the body
of a 70 year old woman,
while also dealing with a dysfunctional family.
I sat down with Tony winning star
of Kimberly Akimbo, Victoria Clark.
(cheery music)
Let's jump in and talk about it
because people are really excited to see this.
When you started previews,
then eventually for opening in November,
how are you feeling?
- Terrified, super excited,
and, yeah, a little scared, a little scared.
- Talk about this story.
Did you say like, Listen, I can't wait
to get back to the stage,
or this story is a reason I wanna go back to the stage.
- Really It's the latter.
I had been doing mostly directing and doing some writing,
I know you've been writing as well,
and I have a lot to say right now in my life.
And so would take a really special show
for me to go back on stage
and feel like I can channel something,
that I myself would wanna express.
And this is, the show is doing it to a T,
'cause it's talking about how precious life is.
And I'm approaching, you know,
that age where every moment counts.
And I could never have said it better
than David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori.
So I'm so fortunate,
to be able to use their words
to say what's in my heart.
- I think everyone is kind of looking at life like that now.
I think that the past two years did it.
I think as we, you know,
celebrate another birthday or dread another birthday,
whichever way we go,
we know that life is precious and, like,
you know at some point we're not gonna be here
and we wanna appreciate every moment.
Is that what this show does to you every night?
- Yes, I'm the oldest person in the cast.
The people that play my parents,
Bonnie Milligan plays my aunt,
Steven Boyer plays my father,
Alli Mauzay plays my mom.
They're all at least 20 years younger than I am.
And then the kids in high school are, you know,
a good 20 plus years younger than that group.
So we're really a three generation cast.
And so it's very touching for me
to be in the room with them
and to see them kind of grow up
and, you know, they're teaching me so much.
- Well that's what wanted to ask you.
What is that like?
Because, you know, you're aging,
you're supposed to be a teenager,
so what is that like,
that you're learning in real life,
but also learning on the stage at the same time?
- You know, learning to have fun again.
I mean, I think sometimes when we grow
into adulthood, we think, Oh, you know,
I should be more sophisticated like that.
I shouldn't be so dorky.
I shouldn't be so silly.
And being around this cast has reminded me
just how much fun life can be
and how much fun live theater can be.
So it's really a joy
to come to the theater
and we're really looking forward
to telling the story to a wider audience.
- It's super exciting.
And I think that when I see stories like this
that come to Broadway that are different from what we,
you know, maybe grew up thinking about Broadway,
what does that do for the community as a whole?
- Well, it's where we have to be, right?
I mean, we've spent the last two years,
and many of us much longer than that,
reexamining what we wanna say
and how we wanna say it.
And this show is really breaking a lot of rules
in terms of what musicals do.
It's subversive, and it's irreverent,
and it's hilarious and heartbreaking.
It's all the things in one show.
I mean, I just can't think of a show
that has as many threads,
emotional threads,
pulling through it as this.
It's really complex.
The major vibration,
the major theme,
is the joy and the humor.
- Because I feel like you have
so many different things going on.
You've got the teen,
you've got who you really are,
I mean, that is all part of it.
- Right.
- And then you've got the teen
that is aging, you know, in a different way.
So I feel like you've got three characters
inputting all at the same time.
- Right. And it's a very interesting thing,
to play as an actor,
'cause I don't think the audience thinks for one minute,
Well that's an actual teenager.
You know, you're always, I think...
- [Tamsen] You're an adorable teenager
and I like your candy necklace.
- Oh, thank you.
But you know, I think after a while,
I hope people forget that it's an older actor.
I hope that they start to really believe the story,
which is she has this disease
which is making her body age really fast.
And it's like a roller coaster
and she can't make it stop.
And so I have to believe that too.
Or I can't get the audience to believe,
to believe it.
- When you hear from the audience afterward,
looking at it coming in Broadway,
and seeing the accolades
that you've already, you know, received
and the show has already received.
That has to be an exciting way to come in
to the next opening.
- It Is.
I mean, it's a little less unsettling
than, Oh, we don't know what we have here.
- Right.
- We don't know how to drive the car.
So it's a car we've been in.
It's a big shiny, nicer,
upgraded car for sure.
Our director, Jessica Stone,
is very confident, sure-hand.
This is her Broadway debut,
by the way, as a director.
She and I worked together on Broadway as actors.
I would challenge anyone to think
of all of the women who direct Broadway shows.
It's really hard to come up
with even five names really off the top of your head.
So this is a huge break
for her and I'm really supporting that.
- I love to see women doing that.
Supporting women, empowering other women.
And you've got some incredible women
surrounding you in this too.
- Yes. Okay.
Let's start with the creative team.
Jeanine Tesori our composer,
Jessica Stone our director,
both little sticks of dynamite.
Then Bonnie Milligan plays my aunt,
she has probably the most powerful belt voice
I've ever heard in my whole life,
which is saying something cause I've been around a while.
Alli Mauzey was in Wicked for a long time playing Glinda.
She's hilarious.
Also has an incredible singing voice.
And they're both beautiful actresses.
And then the two younger women in the show,
Nina White and Olivia Elease Hardy,
are both also just like...
They just graduated from college a couple years ago.
They were in the same class, University of Michigan.
They were already friends, you know,
they got auditioned for the show together,
they booked it.
So there's already a lot
of deep connections within the company.
(cheery music)