The good people of Cob County love their corn. They stay fairly isolated from the rest of the world, content with their crop. But there is a corn crisis; the corn is dying. And no one can figure out why.
Among the inhabitants is a young woman, Maizy, who’s engaged to be married to Beau. Beau’s brother Peanut will officiate at the ceremony. But the town decides there will be no wedding until the corn problem is solved. After talking with her cousin Lulu and her grandfather, Maizy decides to go on a quest to save the corn. (You can see where this is going, right?)
It’s Shucked, the Broadway show nomi8nated for nine Tony’s (it won for Best Featured Actor in a Musical) and is now on a national tour due to open Tuesday at the Hobby Center for a quick one-week run, courtesy of Broadway at the Hobby.
Maizy travels to the big city of Tampa to seek help where she encounters a “corn” doctor named Gordy who turns out to be a con man. Misunderstandings abound in the action that follows with Beau breaking up with Maizy while Gordy tries to scheme his way out of the debt he owes the mob.
Mike Nappi plays Peanut who he calls “one of the great thinkers of Cob County. He’s involved in everything. Whether it’s officiating a wedding, judging the goat beauty contest, everybody is like ‘Let’s have Peanut do it.'”
“It’s very funny. Some of the jokes you might groan a little bit,” says Nappi,”But there’s so many clever lines and all of them do serve the story. It’s not just like you’re going to watch a standup routine. It’s all forwarding the plot. These characters believe what they’re saying. They don’t think they’re saying jokes. But maybe what they’re saying is absolutely ridiculous and hilarious and that’s what makes it fun.”
The plot is helped along by a mixture of country, pop, jazz and classically Broadway type songs composed by Tony Award nominees and Nashville music superstars Shane McAnally and Brandy Clark (who have written hit songs for Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves and Carly Pearce among others) with book by Robert Horn (Tootsie on Broadway. .
The musical itself took a long journey to fruition even by Broadway development standards. Two of its songs and one character are the only things from an earlier project Horn was involved in called Moonshine: The Hee Haw Musical which he worked on in 2015. By the time that show was ready to go on stage, COVID-19 hit. Which gave everyone a lot of time for rewriting.
“With any new musical there’s such a process of revision,” Nappi says. “You try things and it’s not necessarily that they don’t work but maybe you have new people in there who create a new vision.”
The show’s songs are outstanding, Nappi says, adding: “They’re clever. They’re heartwarming. They’re some real barn burners in the show that just stop the show dead.”
Nappi himself grew up in a musical family in Pennsylvania. His father is a retired music teacher. His mother is a musical theater fan with hundreds of musical theater albums on on vinyl. He first went on stage when he was 8 years old.
“I did a production of Oliver and I got to put dirt on my face which I thought was the coolest thing ever. And the rest is history.”
The biggest challenge in this show is finding the timing, Nappi says. “Some of these jokes are thinkers and they take a second to get. What’s fascinating is you’ll say the line and you’ll kind of hear a couple people start to laugh and then it’s like a wave as other people start to get it. It’s another reason why there’s nothing like live theater. The audience is so important and part of the show.
“It’s just a super fun and hilarious musical but also has so much heart in it.”
Performances are scheduled for November 19-24 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday, and 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday at Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit TheHobbyCenter.org or broadwayatthehobbycenter.com. $40-$175.
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This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
