Show guide
Shucked
Shucked is a raucous corn themed comedy that turns a fictional farm town's drought crisis into two and a half hours of puns, twang, and heart.
- Broadway premiere
- 2023
- Music by
- Clark & McAnally
- Genre
- Comedy
- Setting
- 2020s
Shucked: quick answers
What is Shucked about?
- Shucked is a corn-fed musical comedy: when the crop that sustains isolated Cob County mysteriously starts dying, bride-to-be Maizy leaves town to find help and comes back with a smooth-talking stranger named Gordy.
When did Shucked open on Broadway?
- Shucked opened on Broadway on April 4, 2023, at the Nederlander Theatre and ran for 327 performances, closing on January 14, 2024.
What kind of musical is Shucked?
- Shucked is an original musical comedy with a country score by songwriters Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally and a pun-packed book by Robert Horn. It was partly derived from Horn's earlier project, Moonshine: That Hee Haw Musical.
Where and when is Shucked set?
- Shucked is set in the fictional Cob County, an isolated farming town walled in by corn, with a stretch in the city Maizy travels to for help.
Has Shucked played in London's West End?
- Shucked has not played the West End; its first London production ran at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in 2025.
The story of Shucked
Shucked is set in Cob County, an isolated farming town so devoted to corn that its residents have never left. When the corn crop mysteriously starts to fail, the town's golden girl, Maizy, breaks tradition and travels to the city for help, returning with a smooth talking outsider named Gordy who claims he can fix the soil. Maizy's fiance Beau is left to hold the town together while Gordy's real motives slowly come out.
Alongside the central romance, the show follows Maizy's sister Lulu and Beau's brother Peanut, whose comic subplot supplies much of the show's rapid fire wordplay. Underneath the jokes, Shucked is about a close knit community learning that trusting outsiders, and trusting each other with the truth, is part of growing up.
The music and the makers
The score was written by country hitmakers Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, both established Nashville songwriters making their Broadway debut, with a book by Robert Horn. Their songs lean into contemporary country and bluegrass sounds rather than a traditional Broadway idiom, giving the show a barn dance energy backed by a mostly acoustic band.
That country pedigree is what sets Shucked apart on Broadway. The songs are built for belting and storytelling in equal measure, and the show leans hard into corn related one liners delivered by a pair of narrating Storytellers who comment on the action between numbers, a device that keeps the tone light even when the plot turns serious.
Shucked on Broadway
Shucked opened on Broadway in April 2023 at the Nederlander Theatre, starring Caroline Innerbichler as Maizy, Andrew Durand as Beau, and John Behlmann as Gordy. Alex Newell, playing Lulu, won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, becoming one of the first two openly nonbinary performers to win a Tony, and Robert Horn was nominated for the Tony for Best Book of a Musical.
The show ran for about nine months before closing in January 2024. Its legacy on Broadway is tied to that mix of broad, crowd pleasing comedy and a genuine country music score, a combination that helped it find an audience beyond typical musical theatre fans and brought new visibility to nonbinary performers on Broadway's biggest stages.
Shucked: frequently asked questions
When did Shucked open on Broadway?
Shucked opened on Broadway in April 2023 at the Nederlander Theatre.
Who composed Shucked?
Country songwriters Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally wrote the music and lyrics.
What is Shucked about?
It follows the farming town of Cob County after its corn crop mysteriously starts to fail, and the outsider who arrives promising to fix it.
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