Ann Morrison as Kimberly Akimbo. Credit: Joan Marcus / c/o David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts
Ann Morrison thought her days of playing a 16-year-old girl were long past. But she never figured that a show like “Kimberly Akimbo” would come her way.
Morrison, who’s nearly 70, took over the role of teenaged Kimberly Levaco in the national tour of “Kimberly Akimbo” a couple of months ago. The tour opens at Tampa’s David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday, Nov. 18.
“The story is pretty much following a 15-year-old who’s turning 16 during the play, and she has a rare genetic disorder that causes her to age four to five years every year,” Morrison said. “So at her age of 15-turning-16, she’s actually in the body of a 70-year-old, which I am.”
It’s not just a novelty role, though. “Kimberly Akimbo” doesn’t have the name recognition of some recent mega-hits musical, but it ran for two years on Broadway and won Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score.
It’s Kimberly’s spirit, Morrison said, not her aging body, that makes the show special.
“She’s a very optimistic character,” Morrison said. “She’s dealing with a very dysfunctional family, who are hilariously funny, an aunt who comes who could get her aunt a hell of a lot of trouble—I won’t give that away—and then being in a new high school, looking like a 70-year-old, and trying to make friends. So she’s got a lot to deal with, and at the same time she’s trying desperately to maybe fix her family.”
The show was created by two of the most significant writers in contemporary theater. David Lindsey-Abaire adapted the musical from his own non-musical play, which was already successful, with regional productions around the country. Jeanine Tesori wrote the music.
Lindsey-Abaire won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for “Rabbit Hole.” Tesori had previously won a Tony for her score for “Fun Home.” The two had collaborated once before, on “Shrek the Musical.”
Morrison lives in Sarasota, but she has impressive New York theater credentials. Most notably, she starred in the original production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along.” That production flopped, but the show has gone on to be often produced well-regarded, and the cast recording featuring the golden voice of 20-something Ann Morrison is a prized possession among fans of the genre.
So far, “Kimberly Akimbo” and Morrison have drawn enthusiastic audiences on this tour, and the reviews have been nothing short of raves.
“If, like me, you grew up with her voice on the original cast recording of ‘Merrily We Roll Along,’ you’ll thrill to find her inimitable sound entirely undiminished by time,” Cameron Kelsall wrote in Broad Street Review. “But the poignancy she draws from her portrayal is the point here. Mature but unguarded, her Kimberly exists between an uncertain present and an impossible future, and it strikes you square in the heart.”
New York theaters, even Broadway theaters, tend to be much smaller than the performing arts centers than national tours travel to. “Kimberly Akimbo” is a relatively intimate show even for Broadway, so it may not seem like a natural fit for a theater like Morsani Hall.
That also may be why, for all its success and awards, “Kimberly Akimbo” isn’t as widely known as some other recent broadway shows that are less revered.
“It’s a very intimate little show,” Morrison said. “A lot of people, at the time it opened, wanted to see the big splashy stuff. This is not a big splash musical. So if you go to New York to see a show, because New York is so damn expensive, it may not be your choice. You might want to see one of the big splashy ones. I think that’s why a lot of people did not see it (on Broadway).”
But audiences even in cavernous halls are responding with an enthusiasm
that Morrison and the rest of the cast can sense as they’re taking their bows.
“It’s such a quirky, heartfelt and intimate show,”Morrison said. “I’m sure the people in the balcony are missing some of our facial expressions. But when the audience stands up at the end, you know they took that great adventure with the rest of us. It’s quite lovely.”
Morrison is a well-known figure on the musical theater stages of New York, and won a Theatre World Award for her performance in “Merrily We Roll Along.” She’s also a familiar sight on local stages. Her home is in Sarasota, and works regularly with Asolo Repertory Theatre and other local companies. In fact, she was appearing as King Herod in Asolo’s production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” right up until she joined the cast of “Kimberly Akimbo.”
Most of her work in Florida lately revolves around SaraSolo, a company she founded in 2014 with Blake Walton, whom she describes as “my partner in crime, and also my ex-husband.” SaraSolo, as the name implies, develops and presents solo theatrical shows in Sarasota.
“We created it because we had done some work in New York at the United Solo Festival,” Walton said. “And we thought maybe we ought to bring a festival to Sarasota.”
They discontinued the SaraSolo Festival a few years back, but they still offer workshops to help artists create solo theater pieces. Perhaps more significantly, Sarasota has been running a program at Booker High School that introduces young people to the art and craft of solo performance.
Solo shows, especially musical solo shows, are kind of Morrison’s specialities as a performer. Although the original 1981 production of “Merrily We Roll Along” was a semi-legendary Broadway flop, Morrison had greater New York success a few years back with “Ann Morrison: Merrily From Center Stage,” her very personal one-woman show about her experiences in that show.
So she’s been rolling along through theaters in New York, and the Tampa Bay Area and all over America for well over 40 years now. But she looks at “Kimberly Akimbo” as a career highlight.
“I have to say, I’ve never had as much fun coming to work as I am doing this show,” she said. “The creative staff is full of heart. The cast, the crew, everyone involved in this show has fun being together. We adore each other. I think I’m going to be very, very sad when this is over in May.”
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This article appears in Nov. 6 – 12, 2025.
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