Ripe With Humor, Tony-Winning Musical Comedy ‘Shucked’ Harvests Family, Community and Corny Jokes: Review

Marc Vitali | January 10, 2025, 2:55 pm

The Chicago cast of “Shucked.” (Photos by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

Welcome to Cob County, where they drink corn liquor so strong “it could raise five kids on a teacher’s salary.”

Cob County is now occupying Cook County, because the first national tour of the new musical “Shucked” just arrived in town for a two-week run.

And it is really new – that is, it’s not based on a beloved movie or book, songs by ABBA or Billy Joel, or any other known quantity or pre-digested enterprise.

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Billing itself as a farm-to-fable tale, “Shucked” reminds audiences that it’s OK to have a great time at the theater. This joyful musical comedy premiered on Broadway in 2023 and received nine Tony nominations. It has hilarious and surprisingly heartfelt songs to go along with the bushels of cornball humor.

The plot is secondary to the fun: in an isolated American county the corn crop starts to whither, so a young bride-to-be leaves the community to seek help. She falls for a big city conman, and before you can say “The Music Man,” he’s trying to bilk the simple country folks.

Of course he finds out that simple doesn’t mean stupid.

The book is by the Tony Award winner Robert Horn (“Tootsie”), and he clearly had fun upping the quotient of jokes and puns about the splendor of corn. By one cast member’s count, there are 181 laughs in the show.

Mr. Horn likes his corn.

Music and lyrics come from the Nashville songwriting team of Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, and the songs conjure ‘70s country-rock and big ballads. These are talented, crafty people who know what makes a tune tick, and their melodies are downright catchy. (I’d call them earworms, but that might sound like another corn joke.)

And the show has a sly agenda. Cob County embraces isolation versus change, yet our heroine Maizy seeks “a window, not a wall.” Because it doesn’t force-feed us its message of unity, “Shucked” earns the right for such earnest moments.

Jake Odmark as Beau and Danielle Wade as Maizy in "Shucked." (Photos by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

Onstage there’s a bumper crop of talent.

Danielle Wade as Maizy is a brilliant and emotive singer. As her boyfriend Beau, Jake Odmark is a bumpkin with a heart of gold and a lovely tenor.

Strong impressions are also made by the narrators who grease the plot machinery, and Mike Nappi as Peanut almost steals the show with his cockeyed country wisdom. (“The only thing worse than a cold toilet seat… is a warm one.”)

In Cob County, strong, independent women make their own decisions and their own mistakes. When Cousin Lulu (Miki Abraham) performs the barn-burning showstopper “Independently Owned,” it’s a celebration of who she is and what she can do. As she says, “This corn ain’t gonna shuck itself.”

In “Shucked,” corn represents abundance, sustenance and love. If cared for and nurtured, it grows. If not, we go hungry.

“Shucked” is running at the CIBC Theatre, 18 W. Monroe St., through Jan. 19.

The Chicago cast of “Shucked.” (Photos by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)