‘Kimberly Akimbo’ tour @ Winspear Opera House (Broadway Dallas)

Photos courtesy of Broadway Dallas

—Jan Farrington

Big laughs.

Big, genuine, LOL, surprised-by-comedy laughs.

Can’t think when I listened to an audience—this one at the Winspear—get more fun out of a story that by rights ought to be classified as part of the “dying girl” genre so beloved of TV, movies, and plays.

But that’s Kimberly Akimbo, an oddball and delightful concoction created by playwright David Lindsay-Abaire (from his own play), with music and lyrics from composer Jeanine Tesori—and winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2023. It’s at the Winspear in Dallas through January 18 (nowadays, a long run!), and this crackerjack touring company is making great music and even greater theater.

Do yourself a favor—and catch this heart-lifting show while you can.

If you aren’t familiar with the story, Kimberly Lovaco is a New Jersey teen with a rare disease that makes her body age at five times the normal rate. In Kim years (her 15th birthday is coming up fast) that makes her about 75 years years old…on the outside. Inside, though, she’s the usual scramble of adolescent emotion, and why not? Her parents put the dys- in dysfuntional, her aunt’s just out of jail, and her new friends at school are a) a puzzle-loving nerd, and b) a quartet of hormone-raging romantics.

As Kim, Ann Morrison is wonderful, and endlessly watchable. She’s innocent and wised-up all at once; ironic and tender; angry—but with a big stash of humor and courage when she needs it. Her feckless parents Buddy and Pattie ( not straight-up evil, but unthinking and prone to the worst-ever choices), who are played by Jim Hogan and Laura Woyasz, replace her bedroom furniture with a crib and other nursery “stuff” for the baby Mom’s expecting…and Kim doesn’t burn the house down. She’s a good person—but at the same time, smart enough to know living with her family might not be the best way to spend the (limited) rest of her life. “No one gets a second time around….”

Nerd friend Seth is obsessed with anagrams (“I like the way you think” they sing to each other), and turns Kim’s birth name into “Cleverly Akimbo”—and it’s a good title for the show itself, not just the girl. Clever Kim is building up her power to live her life as she wants, arms cocked a little defiantly at her hips (that’s “akimbo”), legs wide. By the end of the story, Kim is taking up more space, living more on her own terms.

Particular praise goes to sound designer Kai Harada, whose talent lets the quickly pattering song lyrics and the dialogue come through with great clarity. David Zinn’s scenic design slides from home to skating rink to school—and the world outside—in a cinematic flash. Sarah Laux’ costumes are perfectly small-town ‘80s, and Kim’s A-line jumpers (with a few bright flowers at the hem) gave me a pang of nostalgia for “shopping with my girls.”

The show’s director Jessica Stone keeps the pace lively, and however many elements of the story are onstage at one time, we know how the story’s moving along. And Danny Mefford’s choreography (in particular, for the Greek chorus of Kim’s four high school sidekicks (Seth is a story all his own!), is a delight.

Speaking of Seth, Marcus Phillips brings him to vivid life: shy socially, he’s confident about his intelligence, and amazingly perceptive about Kimberly. By contrast, the four “socials” (played by Gabby Beredo, Darron Hayes, Skye Alyssa Friedman, and Max Santopietro) are amusingly focused on their own concerns: after yakking on and on about college, romance, and their bright dreams of the future, they stop for a split second of awareness: “Sorry, Kim.”

Hogan as dad Buddy and Laura Woyasz are both sad and funny as parents who just don’t have the stuff they need to raise a Kimberly. (“I was never the daughter you wanted,” sings Kim quietly.) Still, their signature songs (Mom’s lullaby “Father Time” and Dad’s “Hello Baby”) make us feel for them. We hope they’ll do better with the new baby, but doubt it.

However, we have no doubt about Aunt Delia (Emily Koch). She’s bad. And hilarious. She’s come back into the family hoping to rope Kim and her friends into a highly illegal criminal scheme involving a stolen post box and a crash course in “How to Wash a Check.” Get the drift? With better breaks, Delia could have ruled the world—and her energy drives the other characters to make decisions and changes…mostly for the better. And did I say she’s funny?

Of course there’s a message to the story of Kimberly’s shortened life, kept both truthful and light-hearted by Lindsay-Abaire and Tesori. Kimberly wryly observes in “Our Disease” that her friends have “a bad case of adolescence,” and that “Your disease is a tough one / That’s for sure / Getting older is my affliction / Getting older is your cure.”

But right now, Kim is alive. And we hope—by now we’re very invested in what happens to her—that “This Time” (the only time she has), she’ll choose a “Great Adventure” and live it to the fullest.

WHEN: January 6-18, 2026
WHERE: Winspear Opera House, Flora Street/Arts District, Dallas
WEB: broadwaydallas.org