I chatted with three-time Tony Award nominee Carolee Carmello about leading the national tour of KIMBERLY AKIMBO and her character development process.

It’s a really fun role for a woman who’s in her 60s to take on a challenge of playing a teeanger. I thought that was a really fun, exciting role in the sense that it’s not something you get to do everyday. But also I think the writing is so good. I think it’s really smart and funny and touching, and it was just the kind of show that I love. It combines an emotional story with humor and that’s the best kind of theater to me. 

I didn’t go to college for theater. I didn’t take acting classes so I don’t have a system that I use or a technique that I turn to. I just rely on the script and the lyrics and my own connection to the character to get inside her head and try to feel what she’s feeling. It’s more instinctual than anything else. 

It depends on the show. Certainly, if I'm playing a historical character like Lucille Frank, I did a lot of reading and tried to find out as much as I could about her life and the situation in Georgia at the time. When I was playing Abigail Adams or someone who actually existed I did a lot of research.

For this character, I didn’t. I know it’s loosely based on a real genetic connection but it’s not mentioned in the show and I thought it was more important to put myself in the script and the score. 

It’s funny. People [often] think I have 10 job offers at a time! I take the jobs that come along. There have been times I've been offered two things that conflict with one another, and [then I] have to choose. You make the decision if there’s people you want to work with or if one pays more. There’s lots of things that go into the decision. Mostly it’s wanting to work and taking the jobs that come along. 

I’m lucky that I have pretty good short-term memory so memorizing has not usually been a big problem for me. Sometimes, they’ll throw a giant lyric change at you, and it’s been a little intimidating, but usually that’s not the biggest issue. 

It was a little stressful, to be honest, because we had a big change in the creative team from Chicago to Broadway. They replaced the director. That’s huge because the director sets the tone for the whole production, and it changed drastically when they brought Jerry Zaks in. 

I loved playing Chicago, but I’m really looking forward to being there in the spring and summer as opposed to when we were there around Christmas. June will be lovely, I’m sure. 

I haven’t been able to see any of the new season because I’ve been away so I haven’t been able to get excited about any of the current productions.

Things that generally excite me are unusual, great, smart writing. It sounds like it’s easy to do, but it’s really not. There’s so many productions out there that just don’t tickle my intellect, I guess. And it’s fine to have a show that’s just spectacle or just silly fun, but for me, what I get excited about is something that really makes me think. 

We had Jessica Stone, who was the director for the Broadway company, with us every day. You don’t always get that with a touring company. David [Lindsay-Abaire, the book writer and lyricist] was around a little bit. He came once or twice a week to watch rehearsal and give his thoughts. He’s the sweetest man. We didn’t see Jeanine [Tesori, the composer] until the sitzprobe and not again until Denver. She was really busy so she really only came to that one music rehearsal with the band. 

The process of rehearsing was interesting because about half the cast had done the show before. Many of them were understudies or covers in New York. They knew the show, and the other half of us, including me, didn’t know the show. So we were playing catch up. It was good because they were very helpful and certainly were guideposts for us. But also it was a little frustrating because we were all starting at different levels, and I felt like I was playing catch up  a lot. It was only about a 3 week process so it was quick. Then we went into tech rehearsals in Utica and finished up that process. I don’t normally like rehearsals so it’s hard for me to say it was enjoyable but it was a pretty smooth process.

For me, the message is very life-affirming. I know if you read the description of the show on paper, it sounds like it might be a really depressing evening in the theater. It’s really so joyful, and I feel like people walk away with a kind of more buoyant spirit, which right now in the world, I think is really useful. We have so much to think about right now in this country and everywhere in the world so having a few hours of laughter and just feeling good about life is important, I think. 

See Carolee Carmello as the title role in the KIMBERLY AKIMBO, playing the CIBC Theatre June 10-22, 2025. 

Photo courtesy of Broadway In Chicago

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