“Kimberly Akimbo,” a quirky show that combined pathos and comedy to win the Tony Award for best musical last year, will end its Broadway run in April, nearly 19 months after it began running.
The show’s final performance will be April 28, by which time it is expected to have run 32 previews and 612 regular performances on Broadway.
Small and quirky, “Kimberly Akimbo” was often overshadowed in a contemporary Broadway dominated by established titles, jukebox scores and famous artists. She but she has outlasted most of the other productions of the 2022-23 season.
Set in a New Jersey suburb in 1999, the musical follows a high school girl with a rare genetic disorder, a criminally dysfunctional family, and an anagram-loving friend.
Adapted from a play of the same title, “Kimberly Akimbo” was released in fall 2022 and is directed by Jessica Stone. It won five Tony Awards, including Best Book, for David Lindsay-Abaire (who also wrote the play); for best music, with music by Jeanine Tesori and lyrics by Lindsay-Abaire; for the leading performance of Victoria Clark, a 64-year-old actress who plays the teenage protagonist; and for a standout performance by Bonnie Milligan, who plays an amoral aunt.
The musical began life in 2021 with an Off-Broadway run at the Atlantic Theater Company. The show has only nine characters and, unusually, they have been played by the same actors throughout their lives; All actors plan to stay until closing.
The show, with David Stone (“Wicked”) as lead producer, was capitalized at $7 million, a modest budget for a current Broadway musical; has not yet recovered those costs.
The Broadway run will be followed by a national tour beginning in September at the Denver Performing Arts Center.
