Letters to Make-A-Wish Foundation. Roller blades. A happy birthday song for a disease. Teenage romance. Bank robberies. What might seem like the setup to a bad joke is actually a five word synopsis of the 2002 Broadway musical “Kimberly Akimbo,” which won five Tony Awards and will be coming to Chicago’s CIBC Theater June 10-22. Before the show arrives, the Broadway cast recording offers a vibrant preview of the show.
We meet Kimberly Levaco at a skating rink for her 16th birthday. Having just recently moved to New Jersey, she’s still struggling to make friends while feeling like a social outcast. The opening song “Skater Planet,” however, bursts with a Springsteen-esque level of joyful energy — not at all sad.
Except Kimberly is a terminally-ill 16-year-old girl with a rare disorder that causes her to age four times faster than normal. This birthday party marks her life expectancy.
That tension between youth and mortality powers the show. “Kimberly Akimbo” is about growing up, what it means to live urgently when your future is a question mark.
Though the premise sounds grim, “Kimberly Akimbo” shines in its ability to juggle absurd comedy, criminal hijinks and heartfelt introspection with remarkable grace.
The track “Better” starts off with Kimberly’s aunt offering well-meaning, cliché advice, until she launches into an hilariously unhinged anthem about living life to the fullest by embracing chaos and committing petty theft. As she puts it, “When life gives you lemons, you gotta go out and steal some apples.”
Songs like “How to Wash a Check” and “This Time” are heartfelt and hilarious as Kimberly navigates a budding romance, her expanding friend group and her aunt recruiting said group to help her commit check fraud.
In turn, in “Skater Planet (reprise),” Kimberly has to listen to her friends sing about all the fantastic adventures they plan to have when they get older, while knowing her death is drawing near. In “Our Disease,” one of the musical’s most gut-wrenching numbers, she addresses this directly: “Getting older is my affliction, getting older is your cure.”
This musical discusses dysfunctional families without pretending that there is always an easy fix, it highlights queer youth and it centralizes the experiences of a young girl with a degenerative illness, making her story universal. “Kimberly Akimbo” isn’t just relevant to teens — it understands them.
