"Getting older is my affliction, getting older is your cure."
— Kimberly, "Our Disease"
Kimberly Akimbo is the 2021 musical adaptation of the 2000 play of the same name by David Lindsay-Abaire. The adaptation was done by Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori, who had previously worked together on Shrek: The Musical. It first premiered Off-Broadway in November 2021 before a move to Broadway in 2022.
Like the play, the musical is about lonely New Jersey teen Kimberly Levaco who suffers from a rare progeria-like disease that causes her body to age at 4 times the normal rate. As a result, she's only in high school but looks to be in her 70s, and is nearing the end of her life expectancy. She's also the adult compared to her immature parents Buddy and Pattie and a social misfit. But Kimberly is determined to make the most of her remaining time, and is both swept into an odd friendship with awkward nerd Seth and a White-Collar Crime plan hatched by her freewheeling Aunt Debra.
Tropes featured in Kimberly Akimbo include:
- Alcoholic Parent: Buddy is an inattentive, beer-guzzling sod of a father to Kimberly.
- All Love Is Unrequited: The foursome of students at Kimberly's school is in a love square: Aaron likes Delia, who likes Teresa, who likes Martin, who likes Aaron.
- Bittersweet Ending: The music ends with Kimberly still likely about to die, but on her way to Disney World with Seth in order to make the most of the time she has left.
- Citizenship Marriage: In "Better" Debra sings that she married a possibly gay man to give him citizenship (she got paid for it). It's also hinted she killed him afterward.
- Cool Aunt: Played With. Kimberly's aunt Debra is a fun and chaotic woman who is so charismatic that she is capable of committing various scams. She convinces Kimberly and her friends to commit a check fraud scam. But this act still helps Kimberly have fun and break free from her family a bit.
- Dysfunctional Family: Protagonist Kimberly (who has a genetic disease that ages her rapidly and will likely kill her in her late teens) has an alcoholic father, a neurotic and hypochondriac pregnant mother, and an unrepentant scammer of an aunt.
- Foil: Kimberly (a kid who looks like an adult) and her parents and aunt (adults who still act like they’re kids).
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling:
- Seth, in "Good Kid," recounts being the Responsible Sibling to his brother's Foolish Sibling and how he hasn't gotten recognized for it.
- Subverted with sisters Pattie and Debra, who are both quite irresponsible, Debra somewhat more so.
- Foreshadowing: Debra sings "This time...nobody dies, not like the other time," indicating the skeletons in the family's closet.
- Hope Spot: "This Time," at Kimberly's sixteenth birthday party at Skater Planet, where her parents resolve to reform and she believes they will. Unfortunately they end up regressing to their old ways.
- Incompatible Orientation: The gay kids in the show choir are in love with the straight kids, and vice versa. Debra clarifies this by the end.
- Is This Thing Still On?: Seth unwittingly picks up the loudspeaker as he admits "I think Springsteen's just okay," which in New Jersey is tantamount to heresy.
- "I Want" Song: "Make a Wish," in the form of a letter to the Make-a-Wish Foundation, where Kimberly expresses a desire to be admired, to travel, and finally to have a nice family dinner, before deciding the last wish is too much and settles for a treehouse.
- Karma Houdini: Played straight that Debra did get away with a lot in the past. Though also subverted in a way. Kimberly disapproves of Debra deepening the pressure the other kids to pull off their bank scam. She and Seth end up taking Debra's share while paying their friends. It's somewhat implied that Debra realizes what her niece means by "Don't worry, I'm going to do what you taught me" and accepts this fate.
- Let Me Get This Straight...: In "The Inevitable Turn" Kimberly's parents finally admit what made them move and Kimberly has to repeat it in incredulity.Kimberly: You had sex with Mr. Zwicky. Dad hired Aunt Debra to beat him up. But Aunt Debra killed him?...What is wrong with you people?!
- Oblivious to Love: The four teens in the love square are each aware of only 3 sides of it (at most)— they don't know that somebody has an unrequited crush on them.
- Practically Different Generations: Kimberly is sixteen and her mother is pregnant again.
- Replacement Goldfish: Pattie's second child is practically this to Kimberly.
- Significant Anagram: The title Kimberly Akimbo comes from Seth creating the anagram "Cleverly Akimbo" out of the heroine's name, Kimberly Levaco.
- When Life Gives You Lemons...: Debra's life philosophy, as mentioned in "Better":"When life gives you lemons, you gotta go out and steal some apples, 'cause who the fuck wants lemons?"
- Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Pattie unsubtly prays that her second pregnancy will be normal and not ridden with a rare rapid-aging disease like her first one. Justified, since Pattie knows she will likely see Kimberly die from said disease, and one child death is hard enough to endure.
- Younger Than They Look: Kimberly is only 16 but looks like a grandma due to a rare disease.
