Coco (Keri René Fuller, center) performs with Bookworm (Patrick Nathan Falk, left), Earworm (Luke Islam) and Brainworm (Milly Shapiro) in the New Group production of The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse.
The New Group, celebrating its 30th anniversary this spring, may not be so new anymore, but that doesn’t mean they have forgotten how to rock. Indeed, their latest production, a pop musical called The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse, is nothing if not a Gen Z shout-out to teenage angst. With his music and lyrics, Michael Breslin delivers a handful of clever, hard-driving songs into the hands of a capable company of young performers. Unfortunately, Breslin’s book, co-written with Patrick Foley, has all the charm of an undisciplined child.
The vindictive Stylist (Natalie Walker) leaves Bookworm (Falk, center) and Earworm (Islam) squirming.
Built upon the shakiest of foundations, and overly earnest when it yearns to be camp, the convoluted story either buries its timely lessons on Internet culture under a deluge of scattered, low-stakes twists and turns, or else faints away under the lightheadedness of its dialogue and character transformations. But to begin with, what is up with that title?
Turns out, the title has a backstory. In 2006, the New York Post ran a paparazzi photo of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan out for a night on the town, and captured the era’s zeitgeist by tagging it, “The 3 Bimbos of the Apocalypse.” Breslin and Foley, though, cast the famous trio aside and ask us to imagine that there was a fourth girl with them in their Mercedes that night, a singer named Coco (Keri René Fuller) who soon vanished after a brief, one-hit wonder of a career.
Not exactly the fifth Beatle, or even the seventh Pussycat Doll, Coco nonetheless finds relevance in 2025 when a young influencer and online sleuth who goes by the screen name She/Her/Sherlock (Milly Shapiro) begins investigating her disappearance. Having no knowledge of the “archaic, regressive, primitive” days of 2006, Sherlock seeks the guidance of two streaming misfits, Earworm and Bookworm (Luke Islam and Patrick Nathan Falk), who soon unearth a video of Coco performing her hit, “Something Out of Nothing.” The song, in a powerhouse rendition by Fuller, speaks volumes to these Internet-addicted kids and serves as the show’s anthem:
Mother (Sara Gettelfinger) puts a scare into Bookworm (Falk). Photographs by Monique Carboni.
I don’t wanna do anything
And I wanna be rewarded for it
I don’t wanna be anyone
And I wanna be recorded for it
More digging around results in a mysterious selfie of Coco standing in front of a clothing rack alongside an older woman (Sara Gettelfinger) and a girl in a hoodie (Natalie Walker). The sleuths also discover a blog post suggesting that Coco died shortly after that photo was taken. Homicide scenarios abound, Sherlock bonds further with her online associates, rebranding herself as Brainworm, and the selfie comes to life as the three Worms inch their way through various murder theories. Is hoodie girl Coco’s stylist or her lover or her sister? Whoever she is, Walker goes all-in on her musical numbers, though each of the possibilities dissolves before being able to generate much empathy. The older woman must be Coco’s mother, but is she crazy or just overly protective? Gettelfinger rants her way through the thankless role.
Is Coco actually still alive? Has she been brainwashed and hidden away? Or does she have some master plan to reveal? The problem is that there is little reason to care one way or the other, when the more interesting yet underserved subplot involves Brainworm and her eventual realization that she herself has been missing from the world for years, existing only on her phone. Explaining her ironic predicament, she observes, “This thing is why I left the world. But it’s also the only thing that keeps me even remotely connected to it.”
Coco (Fuller, left) discovers her fans with the help of Brainworm (Shapiro) and Kiki (Walker).
Many scenes with the Worms are set in cyberspace, which creates a host of challenges for actor, audience and creative team alike. Characters physically standing next to each other on stage are also hundreds of miles apart, alone in their bedrooms. Earworm and Bookworm are inseparable yet crushing on each other from Staten Island and Nebraska, respectively.
Director Rory Pelsue and his designers do not offer much of a solution for this spatial paradox, settling for a set meant to resemble a wormhole, lit with a blue glow. Blinking lights and dinging bells indicate when the Worms are streaming to the masses versus when they “go private.” Nor do they find an imaginative solution for when the Worms travel to that most dangerous of online locales, the comments section of a YouTube video. Also, for reasons unknown, the actors are often saddled with huge, handheld microphones that seem out of place in this era of the earbud. It’s just one more distraction in a very tangled web.
The New Group production of The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse runs through June 1 at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 W. 42nd St.). Evening performances are at at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For tickets and information, visit thenewgroup.org.
Book: Michael Breslin & Patrick Foley
Music & Lyrics: Michael Breslin
Direction: Rory Pelsue
Sets: Stephanie Osin Cohen
Costumes: Cole McCarty
Lighting: Amith Chandrashaker
Sound: Megumi Katayama & Ben Truppin-Brown
