YOUR KIND OF MUSIC. YOUR KIND OF MUSICAL.
For five years, BEAUTIFUL, the Tony and Grammy Award-winning Carole King musical, has thrilled Broadway with the inspiring true story of one woman's remarkable journey from teenage songwriter to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
From the string of pop classics she wrote for the biggest acts in music to her own life-changing, chart-busting success with Tapestry, BEAUTIFUL takes you back to where it all began- and takes you on the ride of a lifetime.
Featuring over two dozen pop classics, including "You've Got a Friend," "One Fine Day," "Up on the Roof," "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," and "Natural Woman," this crowd-pleasing international phenomenon is filled with the songs you remember- and a story you'll never forget.
Following in the footsteps of crowd-pleasers like Jersey Boys and Motown: The Musical, this is entertaining boomer bait that elevates its by-the-numbers narrative with great songs. It's also a tremendous showcase for the talented Jessie Mueller as she embodies King's blossoming from songwriter-for-hire to empowered performer of her own material...McGrath's book flirts openly (though not displeasingly) with sitcom dialogue, and by no means skirts the clichés and shortcuts of hackneyed behind-the-music chronicles. But the story, and perhaps more importantly, the characters, are never less than engaging...The ace up the show's sleeve, however, is Mueller's lovely performance as King, full of self-effacing humor, emotional depth and understated vulnerability. She conveys the burgeoning singer-songwriter's creative drive while wrestling quietly with her ingrained, old-fashioned sense of the expectations for a wife and mother. There's a disarming yearning quality to her characterization that makes us root for Carole to spread her wings. And her vocals are superb, capturing King's colloquial style while insinuating her own personality into songs that work like a time-travel machine for the musical's target audience.
...as designed by Derek McLane (sets), Alejo Vietti (costumes) and Peter Kaczorowski (lighting), 'Beautiful' nods so often to Michael Bennett's original production of 'Dreamgirls' that it starts to resemble a bobblehead doll. Originality is clearly not this show's strong suit. With one very important exception. That's Ms. Mueller, a Broadway star in waiting for several years, who here steps confidently into the V.I.P. room of musical headliners...Much of what makes Ms. Mueller's performance so touching is its projection of a lack of confidence. There's a humility to Ms. Mueller's Carole, part of whom wants only to be a good Jewish wife and mother, preferably in the suburbs. She plays ego-boosting, self-effacing geisha to Mr. Epstein's philandering, mentally unstable Gerry....Modesty is not the usual stuff of Broadway showstoppers. And if 'Beautiful' never acquires the flashy momentum of 'Jersey Boys,' it may come in part from the deferential gentleness of its heroine. But when Ms. Mueller sings the show's title song - sitting at a keyboard in, of course, Carnegie for the production's finale - she delivers something you don't expect from a jukebox musical. That's a complex, revitalizing portrait of how a very familiar song came into existence, and of the real, conflicted person within the reluctant star
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