Award-Winning Comedy To Open TheatreWorks Season; Senior Preview Next Thursday Evening

NEW MILFORD — TheatreWorks New Milford will open its 2005 season on Friday, February 18, at 8 pm, with David Lindsay-Abaire’s award-winning, off-Broadway comedy, Kimberly Akimbo.

Following the success of TheatreWorks’ 2004 presentation of the comedy hit Fuddy Meers (also by Lindsay-Abaire), Kimberly Akimbo will return audiences to the strange, somewhat dark, and always hilarious world of this dynamic playwright.

Kimberly Levaco (Debra Johnson) is your average, suburban, high school student. She ice-skates, chows down fast food, and talks back to her parents now and then.

So what makes Kimberly “different?” A rare condition called Progeria – a disease in which the body ages prematurely.

With the body of a 70-year-old woman, Kimberly is not expected to live past the age of 16. However, what makes Kimberly truly unique is that she is the most mature and responsible person in her upside-down household.

Her already turbulent world is only made more topsy-turvy by the antics of her well-meaning but oft-drunken father, Buddy (Joseph Harding), her hypochondriacal and very pregnant mother, Pattie (Mikki Harkin), and her homeless, half-witted Aunt Debra (Lori Larson).

Sanctuary from her family arrives in the form of teen and fellow outcast, Jeff McCracken (Devin Hanley), an avid “Dungeons and Dragons” fiend.

The show’s designers include Scott Wyshynski, lights; George Meadows, set; and Bill Hughes, producer. Stage management is by Jessica Stewart with Trish Gillespie assisting.

Kimberly Akimbo was presented at The Manhattan Theatre Club in New York in February 2003, where it won the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Writing and The Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding off-Broadway Play. The New York Times called the show “The Comedy of the Year ... Kimberly Akimbo is at once a shrewd satire, a black comedy and a heartbreaking study of how time wounds everyone.”

The TheatreWorks production will run February 18 through March 19. Curtain is 8 pm Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 pm on Sunday, March 6.

Tickets for all shows are $17.50 for general admission.

On Thursday, February 17, senior citizens are invited to a free dress rehearsal at 8 pm, and then Thursday, February 24, also at 8 pm will be Pay-What-You-Want night. At this performance audience members name the price for their tickets.

Reservations can be made online at www.TheatreWorks.us or by calling the box office at 860-350-6863.

TheatreWorks New Milford is an award-winning, regional theatre company located at 5 Brookside Avenue, just off Route 202 (next to M&B’s IGA).