Like Billy Joel, the Four Seasons and many others before her, singer-songwriter Carole King has gotten the jukebox musical treatment with Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, which uses the songs of King and her peers to tell the story of her life and career. While some jukebox musicals fashion entirely new fictional stories around the songs of a particular artist, Beautiful follows the Jersey Boys model, charting King’s rise as a professional songwriter in the 1960s, when she wrote for groups like The Drifters, The Shirelles and The Chiffons, through her emergence as a solo artist with the landmark 1971 album Tapestry.
Beautiful premiered on Broadway in January 2014, and it was nominated for seven Tony Awards that year, winning two. One was for lead actress Jessie Mueller, whose sister, Abby, plays King in the touring production. “It’s been so valuable to me to experience her view of life,” Mueller told the Los Angeles Times about playing King. “She’s able to put this positive tilt on everything, even if things are going wrong.” That positivity, along with songs like “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “One Fine Day,” “The Locomotion,” and “You’ve Got a Friend,” make King the perfect subject for a memorable musical.
The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 20-Oct. 2, starting at $29 plus tax and fee. 702.749.2000
