Danielle Wade and Erick Pinnick in Shucked.Matthew Murphy/Supplied
- Title: Shucked
- Written by: Robert Horn
- Music and lyrics by: Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally
- Director: Jack O’Brien
- Actors: Miki Abraham, Danielle Wade, Maya Lagerstam, Joe Moeller, Nick Bailey, Quinn VanAntwerp
- Company: Mirvish Productions
- Venue: Princess of Wales Theatre
- City: Toronto
- Year: Runs to April 5, 2026
There’s a kernel of brilliance in how much Shucked, the Tony-nominated 2022 musical now playing at the Princess of Wales Theatre, delights in corny humour; it’s a show comprised almost entirely of dad jokes. A rare new musical that goes against the grain and isn’t an adaptation of an existing property, Shucked celebrates small-town closeness with minimal small-town closed-mindedness.
Tonally, director Jack O’Brien’s production is completely and utterly committed to the bit, and how much you enjoy this particular bit will entirely determine how much you enjoy the show.
Composers Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally and book writer Robert Horn are also the authors of 2015’s short-lived Moonshine! That Hee Haw Musical, a tribute to the long-running, pun-laden country variety show. One can definitely see that TV show’s legacy in Shucked’s jokes, here updated enough to fit modern tastes.
Though the show’s actual plot is thinner than a corn chip, the jokes come thick and fast enough to be the seven-layer dip on top. If you’re a fan of wordplay and are in the mood for absolutely relentless silliness, there’s a cornucopia of zany gags on offer. It’s dumb humour done well.
Two eager Storytellers (Maya Lagerstam and Joe Moeller) narrate and frame the straightforward “farm-to-fable” story. Like Brigadoon with a border of corn instead of fog, the town of Cob Corner is largely cut off from the outside world. Its denizens like that just fine, because they have all the corn they can eat and all the corn whisky they can drink.
But when Maizy (Danielle Wade) steps up to the altar with her childhood sweetheart Beau (Nick Bailey), the corn starts to die off, forestalling their nuptials. After Beau fails to either fix the blight or listen to Maizy’s ideas, she storms off angrily to the big city of Tampa to find help – after all, hell hath no fury like a woman corned.
The cast of the North American tour of Shucked.Matthew Murphy/Supplied
When Maizy brings back handsome scammer Gordy (Quinn VanAntwerp), who hopes to profit from the town’s mineral deposits, romantic complications start popping, especially after Maizy’s assertive, whisky-making cousin Lulu (Miki Abraham) gets involved.
Maizy and Beau are a kind of country Barbie and Ken, the former leaving the only world she knows to find herself while the latter has a crisis of confidence and sings wounded, self-aggrandizing power ballads.
But don’t expect even the Barbie movie’s level of social commentary here. While Shucked is both satire of and tribute to small-town Southern sensibilities, it shies away from anything truly political or potentially alienating. The national tour even cuts and replaces the original Act Two opener, We Love Jesus, with an ode to the town’s stones.
In Cob Corner, everyone owns a Bible, but the town is quietly inclusive and considers “Roe vs. Wade” to simply be an argument about how to cross a small river. The most extreme anything gets are some raunchy jokes and double entendres (along with a surprising number of jokes about desecrating deceased relatives’ remains).
Horn is a particular fan of “garden path” jokes, which set up an expectation of a sentence’s direction before smacking you in the face with an unexpected ending. He fills scenes with lines such as “If I had a crystal ball, I’d walk differently” and “When one door closes, another opens...but other than that it’s a pretty good truck.” He alternates these jokes with twisted aphorisms about marriage and family.
Country music powerhouses Clark and McAnally’s score is pleasing to the ear, particularly when they’re in their wheelhouse, serving up twangy tunes such as aforementioned power ballad Somebody Will and show standout Best Man Wins. The latter, a jilted revenge fantasy, features clever board-and-barrel choreography by Sarah O’Gleby, as Beau and his boys sing while jumping on and off the containers in sync. The songwriters also seed some cheeky Broadway references: Gordy’s Act One closer is pure homage to The Music Man, complete with Harold Hill-style patter.
The solid cast delivers every groan-worthy line with deadpan fervour. As sweet, innocent Maizy, Wade displays Dolly Parton-esque grit(s) in her determination to save the town.
Abraham’s raucous, unapologetic Lulu is a highlight, particularly in Independently Owned, a song where she extols the virtues of remaining a single, self-determining woman. If Maizy pours on the corn syrup, Lulu adds the starch. Bailey’s Beau has a soulful (dare I say husk-y?) voice, and the Storytellers are a strong double act, working together in perfect hominy.
As Peanut, Beau’s particularly simple brother, Mike Nappi steals scenes when delivering sets of pronouncements starting with “I think!” in the style of Jack Handey’s Deep Thoughts. O’Brien times all these jokes so that the pace rarely wilts, particularly succeeding in a timelapse presentation of a single hour at Gordy’s bachelor party that leaves everyone plastered on Lulu’s whisky.
Scott Pask’s set places us inside an enormous barn that mirrors the show’s off-kilter sensibilities; it’s clearly seen better days, with sparse, askew slats opening to a wide sky above and the ubiquitous cornfield below. Costumes by Tilly Grimes feature patched denim galore, contrasting the aggressive pastels of Tampa’s elderly residents.
Like a fresh, unadorned ear of sweet corn, whether you enjoy the humour of Shucked is strictly a matter of taste rather than execution. While there’s bound to be a few stale lines left at the bottom of the bag, for fans of dad jokes, the show will be the stalk of the town.
As for Hee Haw haters?
You’re fresh out of shuck.