Beautiful The Carole King Musical

Beautiful-The Carole King Musical is playing at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre located 124 West 43rd Street. The musical runs two hours fifteen minutes with one intermission. It is an open ended run.

Carole King has won four Grammy Awards in 1972 for Tapestry (Album of the Year), It’s Too Late (Record of the Year), You’ve Got a Friend (Song of the Year) and Tapestry (Best Female Vocal Performance). She was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in 2000 for “Song of Freedom”. She dated Neil Sedaka while in high school. He wrote Oh! Carole based on his feelings about her. In the 1960’s, along with her then husband Gerry Goffin they wrote more than a dozen chart hits for numerous artists. King has made twenty five solo albums.

Jessie Mueller won a Tony Award and Drama Desk Award in 2014 for this role. She was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” (2012). Jessie was nominated for a Tony Award for “On A Clear Day You Can See Forever” (2011).

Anika Larsen was nominated for a Tony Award for “Beautiful” (2014).

Derek McLane is the scenic designer. He won a Tony Award for “33 Variations” (2009). He was nominated for three Tony Awards for “Anything Goes” (2011), “Ragtime” (2010) and “Pajama Game” (2006).

Liz Larsen was nominated for a Tony Award for “Most Happy Fellar” (1992). She is known for her role as Jessica Reed on “Law and Order”.

Carole King (Jessie Mueller) is singing on stage with only a piano. After a few minutes the story switches to young Carole. At sixteen she sells her song “So Far Away” to Don Kirshner (Paul Anthony Stewart). She meets her future husband Gerry Goffin (Scott J. Campbell) in high school. Carole gets pregnant at 16 and gets married. They collaborate on several songs. He writes the lyrics, while she does the music. Don Kirshner is there boss. The room next to where they work is a duo of song writers, Cynthia Weil (Anika Larsen) and Barry Mann (Jarred Spector). They become friends. When Don would need a song for a certain group like the Shirelles he said who can write a song for them. When he chose the song, that group would come out and sing it.

We get flashes of different songs from different artists.

The show tells of her life with Jerry, up until their divorce. She then goes solo making the album “Tapestry”.

It ends where it began which was at Carnegie Hall.

This is an enjoyable and well done story of the history of rock n roll.

The costumes are great and change in a swirl.

Jessie Mueller does a great job. She is very convincing that she is playing the piano.

Review by Rozanna Radakovich.

Photos by Annazor.

To read a candid interview with the cast, scroll down to the left for recent photos. Click on recent photos for this and other shows.