Old for her age

Nearly three years ago, Debbie Maslowsky was watching the Tony Awards when Anagram cast its spell.

First performed on Broadway by Victoria Clark and Justin Cooley, the song is a duet between the characters Kimberly Levaco and Seth Weetis, two teenagers who don’t look the same but share a thoughtful friendship rooted in inclusive language.

Seth is feeling alone for his reasons, while the newcomer Kimberly’s got hers: a new town, a new school and an unnamed, rare condition expressed through sped-up aging — calling to mind Natalie Babbitt’s 1975 novel Tuck Everlasting and Penny Marshall’s 1988 feature Big.

(Tuck closed on Broadway after 39 performances in 2015; Big the Musical was nominated for five Tonys and seven Drama Desk Awards in 1996; and in 2023, Kimberly Akimbo won five Tonys including best musical, best book and best score.)

“It was so different than anything else I’d ever seen, but obviously different from everything else that was on the Tonys, for sure,” says Maslowsky. “The song that they did was really in Kimberly’s head. It’s what she’s thinking while Seth is doing an anagram of her name.

“I could see that Kimberly was older than the other kids in the scene, but she was one of the kids. I didn’t know what it was about, but it made me want to know,” says Maslowsky, who stars as the rearranged title character in Kimberly Akimbo, this season’s musical from Dry Cold Productions, the 25-year-old company with a mandate to employ local performers, designers, musicians and other theatre professionals.

There was more to the show — which features music and lyrics by Jeanine Tesori, with a book by David Lindsay-Abaire — and its characters than met the eye.

During moments of downtime at rehearsals, Brady Barrientos (who starred in MTYP’s The Lightning Thief last season) has gotten into the habit of remixing cast- and crewmates’ names in accordance with Seth Weetis’s favourite pastime.

“I actually have a really good one for you,” Barrientos tells Maslowsky, who’s performed regularly with Dry Cold Productions since its founding in 2001 by Donna Fletcher, Reid Harrison and Melanie Whyte. “My bed awoke bliss — I was pretty proud of that one.”

“That’s my real name,” Maslowsky says.

While the 23-year-old Barrientos, who uses they/them pronouns, has previously discussed with the Free Press the gradual acceptance of their youthful appearance, Maslowsky admits it’s been a while since she’s thought about playing a teenager.

“I think even when I was a teenager I didn’t think I could play a teenager,” says Maslowsky, who played the corncob-smokin’ Mammy Yokum in L’il Abner in Grade 12.

“It’s challenging, I’m not gonna kid ya. (Director) Justin (Stadnyk) and I have talked about that and I always say, ‘Tell me if it’s too old, tell me if it’s too old,’ which he does.”

Maslowsky says trying to keep up physically with the younger cast members is an exciting challenge, and she doesn’t have to worry about visibly looking older, because that’s the part.

“It worked out well,” she says.

“I think the thing that Debbie brought to it was that she wasn’t trying to act young,” says Donna Fletcher. “But there’s just this inner light that came out. Debbie has this way of just lifting up her face and light shines out through her eyes over her whole persona. What she’s been able to find is that lightness, youthfulness, naiveté, innocence and hope of a severely troubled, 16-year-old kid.”

“Kimberly knows she has limited time with her family and her friends and it is her goal every day to make it count and move forward,” says Maslowsky, who will appear this September as Golde in the Rainbow Stage-Winnipeg Jewish Theatre co-production of Fiddler on the Roof.

“Until you experience something like this, which I have from family members, it’s just another reminder that you do need to live in the now.”

winnipegfreepress.com/benwaldman

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