Shucked ran on Broadway for just nine months, but the musical harvested nine Tony nominations (one win for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Alex Newell). That’s a testament to the irresistible appeal of the show’s bumper crop of corny humor, shameless puns and hot-buttered nostalgia.
If Shucked feels inspired by the classic TV variety show Hee Haw—well, shucks, that’s the truth of the matter about the final show of the 2024–25 season of AdventHealth Broadway in Orlando.
The “cornpone delight” of the Broadway season delivered “non-stop yucks,” declared Variety after the show debuted in April 2023. “A throwback to the joys of lightweight musical comedy where fresh talent is discovered, songs are catchy, jokes are plentiful, and characters are fun and sweetly simple.”
The “farm-to-fable” tale with echoes of The Music Man is set in fictional Cob County, a timeless small-town Shangri-La until one summer when the corn, source of all bliss, mysteriously dies in the field.
Panicked villagers soon dispatch the aptly named Maizy—her wedding postponed by the corndemic—to seek a cure outside their little nirvana.
Maizy lands in Tampa, of all places, where she mistakenly consults Gordy, a “corn doctor” who turns out to be a podiatrist and a (s)huckster. Charmed, she returns in triumph to Cob County with Gordy, triggering a cornucopia of sham dealings and romantic betrayals leading to a happy—if unabashedly corny—ending.
What an admiring critic called the “smartdumb book” by Robert Horn—whose work on Tootsie earned him a Tony for Best Book of a Musical—is cannily staged by director Jack O’Brien, who snared one Tony for Best Direction of a Musical (Hairspray) and two more for Best Direction of a Play (Henry IV and The Coast of Utopia).
The score by veteran Nashville hitmakers Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally—who have three Grammys and 27 Grammy nominations between them—offers ear-worm melodies that have audiences humming long after they’ve left theaters.
Mandalay Pictures has announced plans to adapt Shucked for the big screen—sure to be a boon to cineplex popcorn sales.
Dr. Phillips Center is located at 445 South Magnolia Avenue, Orlando. For more information, call or visit the website.
