[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of Shake It Away: The Ann Miller Story, starring Kayla Boye and directed by Michael Weber, with choreography by Tammy Mader and music direction by Linda Madonia at the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2025.
I’ve been lucky enough to see Kayla Boye perform her magical interpretative studies of iconic actresses before, in her brilliant Call Me Elizabeth at the Hollywood Fringe in 2022. Her masterful Elizabeth Taylor was utterly mesmerising and profoundly moving. This new production of hers is another biopic, Shake It Away: The Ann Miller Story. I knew Kayla would be perfect for Ms Miller. Kayla is a phenomenal dancer, and Ann Miller was about the best dancer Hollywood ever had!
The story is set in 1970, long after the Hollywood heyday, during an auction at MGM of Hollywood memorabilia. As the auctioneer calls out each item for the bid, Ann Miller reminisces about her life, her career, her lovers, and her friends, some long gone, some still here. And then there are the songs! Some of the most iconic and wonderful musical numbers in Hollywood musical history were performed by Ann Miller.
Ann Miller was famous for her speed tap dancing, recorded at 500 times per minute! We are treated to Kayla Boyes’ phenomenal tap dancing as well as her beautiful voice as she replicates numbers from Ann Miller’s incredible career.
Kayla bears an uncanny resemblance to Ann Miller, which is strange because I thought exactly the same thing when I saw her as Elizabeth Taylor. She has a magical ability to channel these characters. Not just in dance and voice, but in nuance and stage presence. She embodies them, their lovely melancholy, their unshakable voracity and ambition.
This story of Ann Miller is not set at her supposed prime, but in her later years, when she and her contemporaries have been forgotten. Ann Miller still worked as much as she could for as long as she could. She had a family to support and when she finally passed away at 80, although no one is exactly sure of her real age, there wasn’t much left of her fortune. Unlike many celebrities, she didn’t drink or gamble it away. She just always supported everyone…an honorable woman indeed. She started in the studio system at 13, but because she looked much older, they pitched her as 18. Her mother was deaf and found it impossible to get work, so Ann worked. She was quite a remarkable person.
Kayla Boye plays her with a fascinating grace. A woman full of fire, full of talent and a very real understanding of her worth. What battles she must have faced, three husbands, three divorces and all the bruises to prove how right she was to leave them. But there is a voracious spirit to this Ann Miller. A determination to be herself and to live the life she wants. On her own terms.
It’s a brilliant portrayal and a highly entertaining show. full of insights and nuance and wonderful inside secrets and anecdotes. I absolutely adore Shake It Away: The Ann Miller Story and Kayla Boye is a dream!
https://www.kaylaboye.com/work
****
Don’t miss a Hollywood Fringe Festival 2025 #HFF2025 show >>