Carole King’s chart-topping music and her compelling life story are the key ingredients in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. The book by Douglas McGrath weaves the songs and the story together seamlessly. The show is a joy to watch in the brilliant production that opens The Muny’s 105th season.
King initially rose to fame as a songwriter and later began performing her own work. Her best-known songs include “Natural Woman,” “You’ve Got a Friend,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” and “Beautiful.”
The show is bookended by scenes at Carnegie Hall in 1971, where King is about to perform a concert that will be released as an album 15 years later. The scene then shifts to Brooklyn, where 16-year-old Carole Klein has already graduated from high school. She announces that she is going to Manhattan to play a song for producer-publisher Don Kirshner. Carole’s mother, Genie, wants her daughter to follow a safer path, but Carole charges ahead.
The meeting with Kirshner is a success. Under the last name King, Carole sells her first song and begins her professional career. At the same time, she attends Queens College. There she meets Gerry Goffin, a dreamboat who is as passionate about writing as Carole is about music. They quickly become partners in songwriting and life.
An unplanned pregnancy leads to Carole and Gerry’s marriage when she is 17. Supporting themselves is a struggle until “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” becomes a hit.
While working in the Brill Building, Carole and Gerry meet another team of songwriters, Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann. The two couples become best friends while competing for the top of the charts. The score of Beautiful incorporates hit songs by Weil and Mann, including “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling” and “On Broadway,” written with Lieber and Stoller.
McGrath’s book is bright and funny at the start but darkens as Goffin’s personal demons come between him and Carole.
The show’s dramatic and musical potential is fully realized under the leadership of director Marcia Milgrom Dodge, choreographer Patricia Wilcox, and musical director Charlie Alterman, who conducts the Muny’s fabulous orchestra.
The cast is superb. Sara Sheperd embodies the drive, ebullience, self-deprecating humor, and resilience that propel King’s career. Steven Good gives Goffin the intensity that leads to both his success and his downfall. Weil and Mann have terrific chemistry in the performances by Jackie Burns and Jarrod Spector.
The songwriters sing beautifully when they are composing or demonstrating their work. Some of numbers recreate performances by the original artists. There are delightful evocations of:
- The Drifters by Corey Barrow, Shawn Bowers, Tavis Kordell Cunningham, and Byron St. Cyr
- The Shirelles by Talya Groves, Kennedy Holmes, Sandie Lee, and Tavia Rivee
- Little Eva by Holmes
- The Righteous Brothers by John Battagliese and Mike Schwitter
- Janelle Woods by Groves
Sharon Hunter’s remarkable depth lets us appreciate Genie Klein’s touching concern for her daughter while laughing at its excesses. Noah Weisberg captures the flair of music mogul Kirshner.
Ryan Douglass’s industrial-looking scenic design can be quickly reconfigured to create spaces that work well for the show’s many scenes. The period from the late 1950s to the early 1970s is splendidly evoked by Tracy Christensen’s costumes, Kylee Loera’s video, J. Jared Janas’s wigs, Rob Denton’s lighting, and John Shivers and David Patridge’s sound.
Beautiful continues at 8:15 p.m. through June 18 at The Muny in Forest Park.
—Gerry Kowarsky
Photo by Phillip Hamer Photography
From the left, Steven Good as Gerry Goffin, Sara Sheperd as Carole King, Jackie Burns as Cynthia Weil, Jarrod Spector as Barry Mann, and Noah Weisberg as Don Kirshner in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.
