Show-biz autobiographies have become just about the dreariest nonentertainments visited on us. They are even more alike than Tolstoy’s spurned happy families. Although Kirsten Childs has denied that The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin is autobiography, a mere reading of her program bio gives the lie to that, her accomplishments being roles in four musicals and one movie. She has received five major awards for this project, for which she wrote book, music, and lyrics. And indeed, she is quite literally a triple threat, being equally untalented at all three.
To her awards, I would add a sixth for most misconceived title. A chameleon skin is not one that, though black, thinks itself white, but one that keeps changing its color. And a show that is only skin-deep yet reminds us of skin-shedding courts the disaster of being flayed alive.