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'Kimberly Akimbo' Music and Technical Aspects | The Box Seat Babes Podcast · The BSB Podcast

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  4 00:00:15,685 --> 00:00:19,206 Welcome back to another episode of the Box Seat Babes podcast.
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  Today we are continuing our discussion on the latest show to arrive on Broadway Detroit, Kimberly Akimbo.
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  But before we discuss what you can expect from the musical.
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  Like, follow, and subscribe to Box Seat Babes on all social media platforms at Box Seat Babes.
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  Joining us again is Ryann Ferguson for part two.
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  Thank you so much for being back.
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  Thanks for having me.
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  And before we jump into the discussion, spoiler warning, if you have not seen Kimberly A Akimbo either on Broadway or on its national tour, please save this video and come back to
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  it later if you don't want to be spoiled.
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  We are going to be talking about some of the musical aspects, the staging, giving our final verdict.
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  So come back to us and we'd love to continue that discussion.
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  So just a quick recap of episode one, we talked about the story of Kimberly Akimbo, which is about a 16 year old girl with a rare disease.
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  who ages rapidly.
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  I think they say in the show specifically four times as fast, correct?
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  I think four, four and a half, yeah.
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  Okay, she's she's about like a seventy year old woman and she's looking more reality kind of in the face, you know Most people who have her disease don't live past the age of 16
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  and she's knocking on her 16th birthday when the show begins and the show is really about like the Family dynamics of her mother her father her aunt Debra which if you listen to
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  part one, we have lots of love for aunt Debra team and Debra And just kind of about
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  how she decides to live her life and how she kind of gets to take charge of that.
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  So all that's in part one, if you haven't listened to it, go back and listen to it if you want to hear about the story.
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  But today we're really going to turn towards some of those other aspects of the show, which deserves just as much attention as the story itself.
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  So I'm going to jump right in asking you a very important question.
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  Have you ever seen Shrek the musical?
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  I have not.
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  It's on my list though.
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  It's on my list.
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  We actually got to start this season with Shrek the Musical.
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  It was the first one that started off August.
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  And the reason I ask is because Jeanine Tesori, who wrote the music for the show, was the writer for Shrek the Musical.
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  Okay.
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  and as I was listening to the show, you can hear a lot of Shrek the musical within the lines and like, like the music of Kimberly Akimbo, which I thought was very interesting,
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  but I don't think anybody who has not seen Shrek the musical would even pick up on that.
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  but just to give you an idea, like, Jeanine Tassori, she wrote, Fun Home, which is a one act play about
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  family, a dysfunctional family.
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  She wrote, she's written music for things like Thoroughly Modern Millie, Caroline, or Change, like there's some really big shows that she has written music for.
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  So without that all that background knowledge, what is kind of your impression of the music of Kimberly Akimbo?
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  fun and interesting.
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  I think they used it in a way to like move the story along.
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  Like it's not one of those ones where you know you're in this this moment and it's a song about that specific moment.
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  Like I think for me most of them seemed like they were the piece like the story is moving with the song and so you're you're kind of almost skipping over
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  a lot of the day-to-day type stuff with the music, which I think it's interesting talking about transitions and stuff like that, on a technical side.
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  I was gonna say it's interesting because there's a lot of story told in the music.
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  guess let's bring that back from the music first to talk about the story of this.
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  And something that we've talked about before is that this was actually a stage play before it was a musical.
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  Kimberly Akimbo was originally written as a comedy by David Lindsay Abaire.
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  back in 2001 and it wasn't made into a musical until it premiered in 2021.
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  So literally 20 years later from stage to musical.
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  What are your thoughts on that transition?
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  You know, I think it's an interesting transition.
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  I didn't get to see it as just a stage play, so I think it's hard to kind of pinpoint each one.
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  Now was having a conversation with someone over the weekend who did.
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  She was at the show the night before us, and she had seen the show when it was just a play.
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  And she was kind of
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  commenting on whether or not the music actually added to the story and I thought that was a really interesting take.
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  Do you think it added to the story?
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  I think there are in some places, yes, but in others, like, I think you kind of almost lose it a little bit.
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  Like you lose the through line.
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  There's definitely some interesting things about the music.
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  Well, first off, I want to start with, I always think that adaptations that start as either a movie or a play and then transition to a musical have more work to do than a
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  musical that's just written from the beginning.
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  Because you're right, you do have to add something to the show to make it like, otherwise, why are we doing it?
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  Like, why are we?
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  Why are we turning this into a musical?
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  What's the point?
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  So that's always my first thought when I think about a show of what are we adding?
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  What are we gaining?
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  What are we taking away from this?
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  Just like you, I had never seen the play.
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  I didn't even know it was a play until I was doing my research for this and you and I were having a conversation about it.
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  And so it's interesting in that we went into this blindly.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  not knowing.
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  And then when we retroactively look back, I was thinking like, yeah, there are times where this music doesn't feel like, it feels like the play or the story and the music are going
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  together down the stream, but they're not the same stream.
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  If that makes any sense in my head.
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  I think I can think of an exact example song too.
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  The one where Kimberly and Seth are both singing at the same time.
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  That one for me, I think back on it and I'm like, as a play scene, I think it would have been a little easier to follow because they're kind of overlapping each other in the song.
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  like both of their perspectives.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And you're not like, that was one of those instances where I was like, is this adding or is this like taking away from like her kind of discovering like, I have feelings for
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  somebody and they kind of feel the same way.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  I agree.
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  And I always think of songs when they're singing over each other.
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  I call it the Stephen Sondheim effect because that's definitely something that he likes to do.
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  But the one song, as both of us have seen, Sweeney Todd, I've seen it multiple times, but the song where there are two songs that are intertwined together, but you have both of
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  those songs beforehand before you intertwine them so that you can get the overall message.
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  And when this is done in Kimberly Akimbo, you're just kind of thrown into them singing over each other and you're like, what is this?
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  Again, what is this doing?
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  Where does this seem to really be?
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  How does this seem to be working?
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  Like, how are we adapting this?
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  the word there was
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  tell from the tempo of the song a little more.
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  Oh, because it's this thing that is building.
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  But I think lyrically you end up like, you're like, wait, I know where the vibe of where this is going, but what is happening?
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  Yes, yes.
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  One of the songs that really stuck out to me was Our Disease, where I think that there was an interest, like I understood what they were doing.
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  I didn't understand the delivery of how they were doing it.
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  So for those who haven't seen the show or need a refresher, Our Disease is when Kimberly, Seth, and the rest of the kids are discussing their diseases, which is kind of like this
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  project that they've been working on.
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  With this project, Kimberly and Seth are presenting.
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  Kimberly's disease.
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  They're presenting what makes Kimberly age.
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  And so this is kind of the story, the song where she really confronts her morality.
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  And this is a song where, if I remember correctly, she has a panic attack at the end of
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  And so I understood what they were doing.
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  And then I was like, but you're also talking about diarrhea and throw up and you're talking about like dysentery and like, was one of those moments I'm like, what you're
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  adding, I think would have been totally different in the stage play.
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  Like that scene would have played out differently.
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  It would have been dramatic.
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  And now we're kind of laughing about, we're not laughing about Kimberly like.
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  facing her morality, but we're laughing about an entire situation where this girl is having a panic attack because she's realizing she's going to die soon.
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  And that's where this I really struggled with the music of Kimberly Akimbo.
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  At least that's kind of how I, there were some songs that were great.
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  You know, I'm always going to go back to the Aunt Debra song when she comes in.
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  That's a great song.
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  Like that was fun that, but it wasn't, didn't have to be anything more than just being fun.
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  Alright.
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  Do you think the music's fun in this show?
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  There are fun moments, but I think with the tone of the play that a lot of it is a little somber.
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  Sure.
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  Yeah, I would agree with that.
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  It's funny because I've talked to people who have seen the show and who were even in the show and they were like, it's not supposed to be sad.
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  Like, it's supposed to be quite hopeful When I'm watching, I'm like, there's a lot to be sad about.
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  I think, and I think that there's a difference between like comedy.
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  So the original play was written as a comedy.
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  And I think that when you really kind of focus in, and you're trying to write music for something.
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  So you're sitting down, you're taking this comedy and you're like, okay, I need a powerful ballad.
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  I need a fun anthem.
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  And you're breaking it down.
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  I think that's where.
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  where the sadness kind of almost comes in because you're like, okay, well what in this scene would Kimberly be singing about or the mom be singing about?
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  And like, you know, so you're gonna like focus in on the things that they might've just made a joke about and moved on in the play.
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  You know, I haven't seen it, so I don't know 100%, but I would imagine.
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  and you're like focusing in on that moment instead of just making a joke and moving on.
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  I think that one of the songs that I actually found myself getting kind of sad about was the second song of the show where Pattie singing to the baby.
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  And you could tell right away, like you're supposed to kind of be laughing.
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  telling your, you're, know, you have a video camera in front of you.
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  You're telling a story.
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  have these braces on your arms, but right off the bat, you could just see how neglected Kimberly was, but not even being in the scene.
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  And like from that song, the moment the mom pulled out the camera, sat on the couch and started singing, I was like,
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  I'm sad.
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  Like this is, I feel like we're laughing and I was chuckling too, but I was like, I feel awful because this, I know what this girl's about to go through having never seen the
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  show.
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  Well, and that's kind of how I felt about the song when she's writing the letter to Make-A-Wish.
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  Like, it's this joke and she lands on a tree house because she can't think of anything.
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  And I'm just like, I was sitting there and I was like, that's so sad that the only thing you can think about that's like your life dream.
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  You're listing all of these things, but then you go circle back to tree house.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  because she just, like, she never got to have that childhood that she really wanted because she's been taking care of her parents.
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  Yeah.
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  And it's not because she's aging.
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  It is because she's taking care of her parents and like what she wanted as a tree house.
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  And even a little bit later when the mom said, why would you want a tree house?
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  Like, why would she want a tree house?
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  Like they didn't understand just like the simple things of like what a child would want.
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  And so, yeah, I think you're right.
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  Hello, darling goes right into make a wish.
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  And both of those are absolutely sad.
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  Yeah.
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  And even I want to say the last song of the show, Great Adventure, I was also finding myself getting choked up with because it's such a simple, like it starts with the ukulele
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  and it starts with like the childhood wonder.
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  But it's really sad because again, she had to leave her family behind to find happiness.
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  And she like is writing them postcards and they're happy about getting the postcards.
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  And.
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  You know, like, and Seth is there with her, but like, I don't know, there's just this huge.
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  Again, like that bittersweet moment, you're taking the happiness with the sad.
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  She gets to go have a great adventure.
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  But also you're reflected on the fact that life wasn't great for her or her family.
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  I think also the fact that like the video camera in that scene where she's recording a message to her sibling like future sibling that she doesn't even know if she's gonna have
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  a relationship with because she doesn't know if she's gonna be alive Like you're also touching on that morality again, you know again
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  And also what you're leaving behind, because I think in that scene too, you really get the sense of, Seth is the one that's gonna be, like Seth's the one that's gonna be sad.
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  Like even in that moment, I feel kind of bad because they didn't give Aunt Debra like a moment.
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  They kind of gave her a joke about like having to go work at Costco, but she also was losing her niece that she loved so much.
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  And like there wasn't a moment for her to like really stop and grieve that either.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And so that's a, it's a very, again, that bittersweet song.
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  And a of this, a lot of this music, felt myself being like, I'm like very sad about, you This isn't an album I think I could listen to over and over again and be happy.
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  Right, like this is an album you listen to like when you're in your feelings.
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  100%.
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  So with the show being in the 90s, do you feel like the costumes captured that, I don't know, that whimsicalness of what the 90s was?
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  trying to think back on it now.
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  Yes, yes, and no?
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  Like there was the fun colorful like there were bits and pieces that I kind of remembered but a little of it seemed more like current like what you would wear now thinking about
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  the 90s not actually what you would wear in the 90s.
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  Do you know what I mean?
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  Yes, it felt like they were kind of forcing like grungy looks or they were forcing like colorful looks that you're like, I was a
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  on top of the shirts.
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  I was like, yes, this is what I could see my sister wearing and being like, this is my 90s inspired outfit.
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  100 % but in 1999, we'll be wearing that probably not like
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  but I think that where they did capture the nineties was with a lot of the set design, specifically the roller rink.
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  I, that felt so much out of the nineties.
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  I loved the appearance of that.
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  but what, how was the, how was the staging for you?
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  could go on and on about my love for this set.
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  I think I even turned to you in the middle of the show and was like, I'm obsessed with this set.
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  The way they were able to do their transitions so seamlessly with the drop downs, I don't know that I've ever seen a show like that that was so seamless in its transitions from
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  scene to scene by only moving one or two pieces between it.
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  Like everything in it was so multifunctional.
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  Yes.
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  Like even the lockers, they had like three sides to them.
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  So in any given scene, they were either school lockers or like the roller rink lockers.
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  I think the library bookcases.
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  Like I was like, this is genius.
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  Yeah, no, it was so functional.
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  Every piece had something to it.
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  You know what I mean?
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  Like it was, I loved how her bedroom came out of the wall and then disappeared again.
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  There was something else on the right hand side of the stage as well that did that where they would like, the kitchen or something that would slide in and out.
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  I just like, you know, sometimes you're at a show and like the curtain closes and everything's moving around and then it opens back up and there's your transition.
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  This was just so, like in the moment that I didn't even notice it was happening half the time.
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  Yeah, like it was, it reminded me so much of a Broadway show in that a lot of the times they don't stop to change.
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  They're transitioning as things happen and things are moving.
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  And we don't always get that with a touring show.
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  A lot of the times it is like, we got to stop to flip the flip the thing around or we have to move this piece in and we have to move this piece out.
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  But I can't think of a single piece that I remember then I take that back.
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  When Seth brought in the beanbag chair was the only thing I can think of of him actually having to bring a piece in.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Other than that, everything was just so flawless.
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  And it used even
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  the back layer where it had the doors that they would come in, they were able to change those without actually moving anything for the scenes.
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  Yeah.
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  And like every, every place felt so distinct that you don't, you didn't notice it, but you're at the same time, you're like, this is similar things.
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  That's the same locker I've seen throughout the entire show.
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  Um, I do think that it also did some really cool things with some lighting, but the thing that's standing out about me with the lighting is the snow, which they had the practical
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  snow a little bit.
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  And then they changed from practical to screen snow, like in the back.
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  And you didn't even notice that there was a transition with that.
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  was so smooth.
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  Yeah.
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  And of you're like, there's no more real snow happening anymore.
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  Yeah.
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  absolutely.
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  This was some great staging.
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  It deserves every recognition for the staging and the lighting.
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  and the, I think it did a good well balancing the tones too, you know, which speaks to Jessica Stone, who was the director of it.
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  Like there is a lot of comedy, there's a lot of sadness, but I think ultimately you do leave it feeling bittersweet and you don't leave it feeling completely distraught.
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  so what do you feel like?
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  What's your final verdict for this?
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  If you had to give it a grade.
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  go like I'd go with the B.
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  I would.
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  I would go with a solid B.
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  think you know any like little things aside like you said the staging and the throughput in this stayed very true and I think it was very well done and I left like thinking like
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  wow that was a pretty deep like that was a really great show.
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  As I said, I don't see anybody leaving looking angry or upset.
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  Like there was, there was a bit of dancing.
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  There was a bit of excitedness.
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  There was a lot of smiles.
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  I think I would also give this a solid B.
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  I don't know if this is a show I would see every time it toured.
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  I do think this is a show that I would see again.
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  But I think I'd have to be in the right mental space for it.
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  I think that's the kind of takeaway.
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  Like you can't, this is not just a show you're going to go see just to enjoy it.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Would you recommend this other people?
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  I definitely would.
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  I definitely would.
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  I think that it's definitely something that with the themes of life and how fleeting it all can be and how we're just, we should all be happy and try to find that happiness, not
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  to any means necessary.
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  Please don't go rob a mailbox, everybody.
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  Please do not commit check fraud.
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  We are not saying that.
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  but I think that it does just kind of reminds you of like life is short.
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  Let's try to make the best out of this that we can because
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  We don't really have much else, you know?
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  Yeah, I think at the end of the day, it's relatable.
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  And like sometimes, like you need relatable.
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  Absolutely.
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  mean, I could see us both relating to so many characters and like, yeah, we're not aunt Debra.
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  We are not breaking without the without the fraud.
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  without all the crime.
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  You know, don't do crime.
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  Don't do crime.
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  I mean, we could have a whole podcast about how Aunt Debra's clearly lesbian coded.
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  episode three.
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  Episode three.
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  But it is so relatable and there's there's something for anyone of any stage in their life that they can take away from this.
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  And I do think that's what's interesting about having a character like Kimberly, who is both a teenager and presenting as an old woman.
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  Like.
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  Every older adult can see themselves, can see their future staring at them and that character and they can remember what it's like to be a teenager.
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  and they can, the cross section of what that is.
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  And I think all of us think about our morality at some point.
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  I think I found myself thinking about my morality after this show.
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  And I was thinking about like, well, we're all gonna die soon.
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  Which is not the takeaway from the show, but I do think that it does make you stop to think about like, what do you want the last bit of your life to be?
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  Because once it's gone, we can't get it back.
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  True.
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  I think another prime example of that too is that scene towards the end where Aunt Debra is looking at the classmates and she's like, listen, I'm going to save you guys 12 years
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  of your life right in this moment.
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  Gay straight, gay straight.
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  You're welcome.
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  And then just walks off stage.
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  But first off, that scene is probably the most relatable, because I was like, man, I wish somebody would have told me I was gay when I was 15.
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  I wish we could have all just pulled off that band-aid and not have to worry about it all.
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  But yeah, that's the perfect way, is that she's just like, you can sit here and you can stress about it if you want.
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  You can totally tear yourselves apart thinking about how you're never.
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  going to get the person that you're pining for.
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  But is it really worth it?
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  Is your happiness worth it?
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  And ultimately, your happiness is worth it as long as you're not going to commit crimes, people.
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  OK?
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  That completes our episode two of our Kimberly Akimbo discussion.
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  Thank you so much for joining us again today in our box seats.
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  Ryann, thank you again.
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  We can't wait to have you back on the show.
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  I'm looking forward to it.
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  We're gonna have to our own podcast one day.
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  But until next curtain call, everybody take care and we'll see you soon.