By the time you get to Act Two in the Broadway hit musical “Kimberly Akimbo,” you’ll probably be too caught up in the plot to notice it. But if you can, watch for the interplay between actors Jim Hogan and Emily Koch.
He plays Buddy, the father of Kimberly, a teenager who is aging at 4½ times her normal rate, suffering from a disease similar to progeria. Koch plays Buddy’s sister-in-law, Debra. Buddy and Debra despise each other.
“Act Two is one of the climaxes of the show where everything comes to a head and everything starts to go wrong. We’re sitting at a table, yelling at each other,” Hogan said.
It’ll be a screaming match on stage at the Academy of Music and the job for both actors involves loathing to the max.
Except, in real life, they don’t.
They’re boyfriend and girlfriend, together for more than seven years since a first kiss at a cast party in Appleton, Wisconsin, when both were understudies on the Broadway tour of “Waitress.”
What they do on stage – and maybe it’s not the most professional – is to try to make each other laugh while loathing.
“We’re pranksters, onstage and backstage,” said Hogan, who grew up in the Roslyn section of Abington Township in Montgomery County. “We’re maybe crossing our eyes at each other” or he might imitate her wild gestures.
“Our hope is to have some fun with each other and go as far as we can to push that envelope,” he said. The other actors know what’s up, and they too need to avoid getting caught up in the laughter. But sometimes, Hogan said, someone forgets a line, or there’s a momentary silence until the actors collect themselves. Not that the audience notices.
Hogan denies ever yelling at Koch in real life and says that while there may be some cathartic moments in the onstage screaming, he can’t remember them.
He and Koch were a couple when she and her parents first saw the musical adaptation of “Kimberly Akimbo” in an off-Broadway production in New York in 2021. She came back raving about the show, and bought more tickets, insisting that Hogan see it with her, telling him it was the best theater she had seen in a decade. He agreed instantly, he said, and started working to be involved.
When the Tony Award-winning musical opened on Broadway in 2022, Hogan and Koch landed roles as understudies. The show was nominated for eight Tony Awards and won five, including best musical, book, and score. When they auditioned, Hogan said, the directors didn’t know they were a couple.
Both got cast in main roles for the touring version and are now subletting their Manhattan apartment in Washington Heights.
Hogan said his first experience with theater came when he was about 10 and his parents took him to see his sister perform in Bishop McDevitt’s High School’s production of “South Pacific.”
“I thought it was the coolest, weirdest thing,” Hogan said. He was immediately hooked, taking classes and working with Summer Stages in Upper Darby – the same theater program that nurtured actor Tina Fey. He eventually studied musical theater at Penn State University’s main campus.
Besides acting, Hogan sings with T.3, an a cappella trio famous on social media for its covers of Broadway, Disney and pop hits. They got to the quarterfinals in season 16 of America’s Got Talent. On a two-week break from the show, Hogan will return to Philly with the trio and pop singer Jon McLaughlin to perform on Dec. 17 at World Café Live.
“Kimberly Akimbo” opens with Kimberly waiting for her father, Buddy, to pick her up. He’s 2½ hours late, because he’s been at a bar. There are mishaps all over the place involving both Buddy and Kimberly’s mother, Pattie, a nutty hypochondriac. Debra, Pattie’s sister, is the family felon, getting Kimberly involved in a fraudulent credit card scheme.
Meanwhile, Kimberly has a complicated relationship with a teenaged boy who, not surprisingly, doesn’t always adjust well to the way age changes her. Typically, Kimberly’s role is played by an actor in her 60s or 70s.
“This is a story about living your life to the fullest,” Hogan said.
And there’s a lot of love in the show.
“Upon seeing Buddy’s activity, it’s not difficult to see he’s been making some poor decisions,” Hogan said. “He’s definitely in love with his daughter, but he has strange ways of coming up short. He makes efforts and grand gestures and they fall apart.”
Hogan, speaking from Atlanta last week, said he’s looking forward to being back in Philadelphia.
His family will come to see him in the show. He plans a pilgrimage to John’s Roast Pork, where he’ll order a cheesesteak, not the roast pork. He plans to check out reports on the latest cheesesteak craze – a sandwich from Angelo’s in South Philadelphia – and see how they compare. He likes the Japanese fusion food at the Double Knot sushi bar in Center City.
“There’s something about Philly that makes me the happiest,” he said. “It’s my happy place.”
FYI
“Kimberly Akimbo,” Oct. 21-Nov. 2, Ensemble Arts Philly and The Shubert Organization, at the Academy of Music, 240 S. Broad St., Phila. 215-893-1999.
The post Life — and trouble — comes fast in Broadway hit ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY.
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