✭✭✩✩✩

music & lyrics by Brandy Clark & Shane McAnally, book by Robert Horn, directed by Jack O’Brien

David and Hannah Mirvish, Princess of Wales Theatre, 300 King Street West, Toronto

March 5–April 5, 2026

Beau: “There’s a cornfield of difference between simple and stupid”

The North America tour of Shucked has arrived in Toronto. The Shucked website advertises the show as “The Tony Award-Winning Musical Comedy”. That is rather misleading. Shucked was nominated for nine Tony Awards but won only one — to Alex Newell for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Newell is not in the touring production so its claim to be “Tony Award-winning” is only tangential. But that’s not the only thing that’s problematic about the show. The dialogue is overstuffed with punning off-colour jokes, we care nothing about the characters, the plot makes no sense and the songs are instantly forgettable. The cast does an heroic job of trying to make the show at least entertaining, but so far this is the most miss-worthy musical running in Toronto.

The plot is like a cynical, downmarket version of The Music Man (1957) set in Dogpatch, the isolated country town of the 1956 musical Li’l Abner. The musical’s two Storytellers, 1 and 2, inform us that the show is set in Cob County where the main crop is corn. Corn grew there so well that it created a wall around the county that has cut it off from civilization, an ironic reference to the rest of the USA. Childhood sweethearts, Maizy and Beau are just about to get married when the locals notice that all the corn is suddenly dying. Against everyone’s advice, Maizy ventures out of the security of Cob County to see the outside world, here symbolized by Tampa, Florida.

There Maizy notices a sign for a “corn specialist” named Gordy, who is really a conman masquerading as a podiatrist (get the pun on corn?). He notes Maizy’s gem-heavy bracelet and has it valued by corrupt jewellers who say is composed of highly valuable stones. When Maizy says the stones are from purple rocks found all over Cob County, especially under her house, Gordy successfully woos Maizy and goes to Cob County with her — much to the chagrin of Beau and the suspicions of the locals. Worse, Maizy so loves Gordy she plans to marry him, while Gordy’s only thought is of stealing as many of the purple rocks as he can and fleeing.

The guiding principles of Shucked stem from the old American love of making fun of rural folk as hicks, rubes, bumpkins, hayseeds, yokels and other derogatory terms. The main characteristics of such people are lack of money, sophistication and interest in the outside world. Costume designer Tilly Grimes ensures that we know the denizens of Cob Corners are poor by placing patches on top of patches on the mostly denim clothing they wear. Set designer Scott Pask reinforces this by locating all of the action inside what looks like a decrepit barn missing numerous slats on the sides and roof.

Book author Robert Horn emphasizes the characters’ dimwittedness by composing the dialogue almost entirely of jokes. One character, Beau’s brother Peanut, seems to exist in the show simply to tell a series of jokes all beginning with a slow “I think …”: “At least Mama died doing something she loved … making toast in the bathtub” or “If I had a crystal ball … I guess I’d walk a little different”. Everyone else’s lines tend to follow the same pattern of a joke with a set-up followed by a punchline. The effect is as if some dull relative had received the present of a book like 1001 Jokes to Make You the Life of the Party and then proceeded to read them all out loud whether anyone wanted to hear them or not. The two-part structure of the jokes makes nearly all the dialogue sound artificial which already becomes tedious halfway through Act 1. You think, “Surely, there must be other forms of comedy”, but Horn apparently knows only one form and bangs away at it the whole evening.

The problem with this incessant ridiculing of the characters is that they all come off not as innocent but stupid. It’s great that Maizy is willing to be the first person ever to leave home to find a cure for corn disease, but her gobsmacked reaction to Tampa makes her seem worse than naïve and her being taken in so easily by a “corn doctor” who knows nothing about corns of any kind, just makes her look dumb. It is, therefore, difficult to take seriously any of the passionate songs that creators Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally have written for Maizy since Maizy’s judgement has been shown to be so poor.

The same problem applies to the would-be earnest songs given to any of the characters. We don’t care about them and we don’t really care about what they think or feel. The one exception is Maizy’s whisky-brewing cousin Lulu who comes off as the smartest and most perceptive of all the characters. It’s all the more lamentable, therefore, that Horn forces Lulu into a 180º character change toward the end. Even Gordy, the show’s triple-underlined villain, who is not clever, is given a 180º character change which, while not lamentable, is equally unbelievable.

Horn has given the show two Storytellers who not only narrate the parts of the story we don’t see but comment on the action we do see. It is as if Horn thinks that demonstrating that he knows how dumb the show is will somehow make it seem less dumb. If fact, it only makes us ask why Horn wrote such a dumb show in the first place.

I could be more positive about Shucked if it were filled with great songs, but it isn’t. The country-western-infused music seems only to recall other better-known country-western songs and vanishes from the memory as soon as the song is over. One exception is “Independently Owned” given to Lulu in which an unconventional woman revels in her freedom. It’s a song that stands out from the others for its witty lyrics and atypical structure.

Director Jack O’Brien seems to be trying to make the show as much fun as it can be. At least he ensures that the most of the cast deliver their ridiculous lines as seriously as possible, a tactic essential for this type of farce. Choreographer Sarah O’Gleby sadly reaches her height in the very first number, “Corn”, when she has the ensemble create a lineup of dancing corn cobs.

The cast is excellent and you can’t help but wish you were seeing them in a better show. Toronto audiences will already have seen the lead singer playing Maizy, none other than Danielle Wade from Lasalle, Ontario, as Dorothy in the Andrew Lloyd Webber production of The Wizard of Oz presented by Mirvish in 2012. Wade now has many other credits and seems fully at home on stage, so it’s odd to see her play such an unperceptive character as Maizy. Where she shines is in Maizy’s eye-opening arrival in Tampa, which Wade lends the kind of awe and wonder that she gave Dorothy on her arrival in Oz. Clark and McAnally give Maizy several serious songs, the best of which is “Walls”, which Wade sings with all the power and passion she so easily commands.

As Maizy’s Beau, Beau, Nick Bailey is very good at acting as if he were the dullest knife in the drawer. He has a very strong voice that takes on the kind of hoarseness in high notes popular in rock music. He gives his all in his two big numbers “Somebody Will” and “OK” despite their lacklustre lyrics.

As Gordy, Quinn VanAntwerp can’t really match Bailey in volume or passion, but then his is role seems conceived as primarily comic. Since we are told outright that Gordy is the villain, it would be nice if VanAntwerp could appear more menacing than he does. He does not allow Gordy’s full sliminess to appear until Gordy meets Lulu and is immediately attracted to her. VanAntwerp is quite adept at physical comedy as is evident when Gordy contorts himself in all sorts of ways inspecting Maizy’s front porch.

Miki Abraham, a nonbinary performer, is superb as Lulu. Their voice is strong, rich and full which helps render the song “Independently Owned” a major highlight. Abraham conveys Lulu’s fierce, uncompromising nature merely by the way they walk about the stage, and they make the dialogue seem smarter and snappier than it is.

Maya Lagerstam and Joe Moeller are a lot of fun as Storytellers 1 and 2. Lagerstam has as voice a powerful as Abraham’s, a buoyant personality and a fine sense of comedy. Moeller has a reedier voice and for unknown reasons prances about on stage with wide eyes and spread fingers in a parody of an effeminate gay man. Such overt signalling might have been necessary in 1960 but, come on, it’s 2026 already.

It quite disappointing that O’Brien has Lagerstam and Moeller play two corrupt Jewish jewellers with New York accents and fingers literally grasping after money. This is yet another outdated stereotype in a show that seems to trade on outdated stereotypes.

Given characters we don’t care about, a plot with a totally absurd conclusion and two hours of being bludgeoned with inane jokes, Shucked has little to recommend it except for the valient work of the cast. The main reason to see Shucked is to experience yet another musical that, along with & Juliet and Some Like It Hot, lost out to Kimberly Akimbo in 2023 in the Tony category of Best Musical so that you then can make your own decision.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Maya Lagerstam as Storyteller 1 and Joe Moeller as Storyteller 2; Miki Abraham as Lulu, Danielle Wade as Maizy, Mike Nappi as Peanut, Nick Bailey as Beau and Elijah Caldwell as Grandpa; Danielle Wade as Maizy, and Nick Bailey as Beau; Quinn VanAntwerp as Gordy and Miki Abraham as Lulu. © 2026 Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman.

For tickets visit: www.mirvish.com.