Seeing Beautiful: The Carole King Musical

Recently my husband and I had the opportunity to take in a performance of Beautiful, The Carole King Musical on Broadway in NYC. And it was amazing. As in — you NEED to see this. It’s so full of music that you won’t be able to help singing along to – from the songs that Carole King wrote with former husband Gerry Goffin for such groups as the Shirelles, the Drifters, and Little Eva to the songs she wrote and performed.
 

Beautiful tells the story of Carole King — but before she was “Carole King”, she was Carol Klein,a girl from Brooklyn. She skipped two years of school and was in college at 16. She fought her way into the songwriting business at 1650 Broadway (right near the Brill Building) and met her future husband, Gerry Goffin at College. They decided to team up (he writing lyrics and she writing the music). They meets Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, who are these biggest competition and become their best friends. After her life falls apart, she finds out that she is strong.

Chilina Kennedy stars as Carole King and she really has all of Carole’s facial expressions and mannerisms down. To me — Anika Larsen almost stole the show as the smart and beautiful Cynthia Weil. Her chemistry with partner, then husband Barry Mann (played by Jarrod Spector) was terrific. Another standout was Paul Anthony Stewart as Don Kirshner – I remember him from his days on the soap opera Loving. Carole’s mother, “Genie Klein” was portrayed by Tony® Award-nominee Liz Larsen.

Beautiful the Musical[/caption]

The ensemble includes Gisela Adisa, Ashley Blanchet, E. Clayton Cornelious, Joshua Davis, Kevin Duda, James Harkness, Aisha Jackson, Sara King, Rebecca LaChance, Douglas Lyons, Chris Peluso, Gabrielle Reid, Rashidra Scott, Sara Sheperd, Yasmeen Sulieman, Daniel Torres, Melvin Tunstall and Alan Wiggins.