Interview: Carolee Carmello of KIMBERLY AKIMBO at Ohio Theatre

In the musical KIMBERLY AKIMBO, Carolee Carmello plays a 16-year-old girl whose body is prematurely aging to that of a 72-year-old.

Asked if she would rather be a 16-year-old with the wisdom of a 72-year-old or a 72-year-old with the energy of a 16-year-old, Carmello said the choice is pretty much a no-brainer.

“I certainly could use some more energy right about now,” said Carmello, whose show will run June 3-8 at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State Street in downtown Columbus). “Doing eight shows a week on the road requires more energy than I've used in a while.

“The people in the cast are not teenagers, but they are much closer to (being a teenager) than I am. I can see how much easier it is for them, handling the show schedule, traveling, and tackling all the things we need to do in a week. They have a lot more in the tank than I do.”

In KIMBERLY AKIMBO, the title character has Progeria or Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome which causes her body to age 4.5 times faster than her peers. When the audience first sees her, Kimberly is nearing her 16th birthday but her body feels like it is 72. Kimberly navigates teen-age angst, a dysfunctional family, and an aunt who is trying to pull her into some shady enterprises while she grows older before her time. When it debuted on Broadway in 2022, the musical, created by Jeanine Tesori (music) and David Lindsay-Abaire (lyrics and book), captured five Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score.

The challenge in becoming Kimberly, according to Carmello, has been relearning the language of a teenager, both the body language as well as the vocal timbre.

 “For this character there’s this sense of wanting to hide and collapse yourself into a ball so nobody notices you. At the same time, you’re wanting to reach out,” she said. “(Vocally) I wanted to make sure I didn’t sound like a woman in her 60s trying to play a teenager. I want the audience to forget I’m an older lady and follow the story of this teenage girl.

“The great thing about this character is she's so positive. She really has such a great outlook on life, much, much better than I have in real life. I can learn a lot from the way she's written.”

This tour, which began in September 2024, marks the first time Carmello has been on the road since a 2019-20 tour of HELLO DOLLY.

“When you are doing a show on or off Broadway, you’re (close to) home,” the New Jersey resident said. “You go home to your kitchen and your own bed every night. On tour, you never really feel settled. The company you’re with basically becomes your family. Even having the wardrobe you need (is a struggle) because you go through all these different climates at any given point. We can go from Southern California to Omaha, Neb., so you need a lot of different kinds of clothing.

“But, you know what? I really enjoy the opportunity to bring a show like this to areas that might not otherwise see it. I see a lot of students who wait at the stage door afterwards because this show means a lot to them. It's a privilege to do it.”

The KIMBERLY tour has gone on a lot longer and has been a lot smoother than the last time Carmello took to the road. Her company had pulled into Buffalo, N.Y. in March, 2020, when everything came to a screeching halt because of COVID.

Carmello remembers that sense of loss as the red carpet was pulled out from underneath them.

“We were having a lot of fun, so I was so sad to see it end,” she recalled. “We didn’t get a chance to do one final show to say goodbye to something we had been doing for so long.”

The experience taught her to make the most out of every KIMBERLY performance because she knows now how quickly it can be taken away.

Carmello fell in love with her character when she first saw an off-Broadway production of KIMBERLY AKIMBO in 2021. Less than a year later, she saw the show again, this time on Broadway, with the intention of auditioning for it at some point.

Carmello shares some similarities with her character. They both live in Bergen County, N.J.  (“The play makes a lot of references to Bergen, so it’s kind of funny that’s where I actually live,” she said.) Kimberly has a sense of adventure and yet feels like an outsider at her new high school.

“I can relate to all that,” Carmello said. “I certainly don’t have her positivity; I’m much more of a realist, maybe even leaning a little towards pessimism. She has this great outlook on life, despite all her challenges.”

Carmello’s 16-year-old self could never imagine the kind of life the actress is leading now. In high school, she auditioned for one play and didn’t make it. That was fine with her because she never really envisioned a life on the stage. At that age, Carmello was preparing to graduate from high school a year early with a dream of making it on Wall Street rather than Broadway.

“My dream was to be a corporate executive with the corner office in some big office building,” she said. “Acting wasn’t even on my radar.”

The actress uncovered her gift while she was pursuing a degree in Business Administration at the State University of New York in Albany. She saw a notice that her dormitory was putting on OLIVER and they were going to perform the show in the dormitory’s cafeteria.

“I thought, ‘Oh, this will be silly and fun,’” she said. “It was my first year in the dorms and I thought this might be a fun way to meet new folks. It wasn’t a major production; it was a bunch of college kids doing a show for other college kids and parents in the cafeteria. But it was fun.”

Carmello did another cafeteria show the following year and auditioned for a local community theatre’s production of THE SOUND OF MUSIC and played Marian the Librarian in a local presentation of THE MUSIC MAN.

By the time she was a senior, Carmello’s hobby began to take root. With just four or five shows under her belt, she was contacted by a producer, who offered her a summer job at his theater in the Adirondacks in Upstate New York.

“That meant joining Actors Equity, which I didn’t know anything about,” she said with a laugh. "I can still remember standing in my mother’s hallway on the phone. He was explaining to me what it meant to be a member of Actors Equity … and I was tilting my head like a confused dog. I didn’t have any idea what I was getting myself into. It just seemed like a fun thing to do for the summer.”

When Carmello’s summer stock cast members began flocking to New York City to try their luck, they encouraged her to come along. To say she made a name for herself would be a colossal understatement. Among the roles she originated are Cordelia the Kosher Caterer (FALSETTOS), Lucille Frank (PARADE), Gabrielle (LESTAT), Mae Tuck (TUCK EVERLASTING), Alice Beineke (THE ADDAMS FAMILY) and The Stepmother (BAD CINDERELLA). She has been nominated for three Tony awards and five Drama Desk awards.

In 1999, Carmello tied Bernadette Peters (ANNIE GET YOUR GUN) for the Drama Desk’s Outstanding Actress in a Musical and was nominated for a Tony for her work as Lucille Frank. In 2006, she received nominations for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for the Tonys and Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical by the Drama Desk Awards for playing Gabrielle in LESTAT. She received her third Tony nomination and her fourth Drama Desk nomination for her portrayal of Aimee in SCANDALOUS: THE TRIALS OF AIMEE SEMPLE MCPHERSON. Carmello was also nominated for Drama Desk awards for her performances as Alice in THE ADDAMS FAMILY (2013) and as Mrs. du Maurier in FINDING NEVERLAND (2015).

“When someone asks me, what the highlight of my career has been, I usually say PARADE,” she said. “That was the first time I had originated a role on Broadway. I was a part of something from the very beginning and was nominated for the Tony. It was a very exciting and artistically fulfilling time in my life.

“But that was 30 years ago. I hate to say that was my highlight because there have been lots of wonderful things that have happened since then.”

Yet, all those wonderful things have been accompanied by anxiety and unemployment. Shortly after her run in SCANDALOUS, which closed after two months on Broadway, Carmello told the Albany Times-Leader, “I still have trouble getting a job.”

That, according to the actress, has not changed.

“All actors are unemployed for chunks of time,” she said. “Most of us always feel during those times that we’re never going to work again. I'll be finishing up KIMBERLY at the end of July and I don't have anything lined up after that, so I'll probably be unemployed for a while.

“I don’t think there’s any secret to surviving it, except trying to take it day by day. The hardest thing to overcome in this career is rejection. I mean, 99 percent of the time when you go for an audition … you’re not going to get it. When you’re constantly faced with that rejection, it can be debilitating. It’s hard to maintain your confidence … unless you’re Kimberly Akimbo.”