BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL Comes to Riverside Theatre

 Riverside Theatre has announced the final production of the 2024-2025 season, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. Beautiful: The Carole King Musical plays Riverside Theatre from April 15 – May 11, 2025. 

Carol Joan Klein was born in 1942 to a firefighter father and a teacher mother. At a very young age, Carol developed an affinity for music so her mother started giving her piano lessons. While attending James Madison High School in the 1950s, Carol formed a band named the Co-Sines and changed her name from Carol Klein to Carole King. In 1958, the young Carole told her mother she was going to Manhattan to try and sell a song to a music publisher. Against her mother’s wishes, she summoned up the courage and headed to the Brill Building at the corner of Broadway and 49th Street, which housed music industry offices and studios. Considered the center of the American music industry, songwriters  there created some of the most popular American songs ever written. When music publisher Don Kirshner heard one of Carole’s songs, he encouraged her to continue her studies and her music writing. 

While attending Queens College, Carole met Gerry Goffin, who would become her songwriting partner and husband. The pair wrote numerous chart-topping hits for artists like The Drifters (“Up on the Roof”), and Aretha Franklin (“A Natural Woman”). They also penned hits for The Everly Brothers, Tony Orlando, The Monkees and Dusty Springfield. 

When Carole and Gerry divorced in the late 1960s, she moved to Los Angeles with her two daughters. In 1970, Carole launched a solo career with the release of Writer for Lou Adler’s Ode label. While a middling success, it led to her sophomore record album, Tapestry, featuring iconic songs like “I Feel the Earth Move” and “You’ve Got a Friend.”  Tapestry won four Grammy Awards and the record remains one of the best-selling and most beloved albums in history. It established her as a leading voice of the singer-songwriter era. 

Throughout the decades, Carole continued to record albums, perform live, and advocate for both environmental and political causes. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. In 2012, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year in 2014, and became a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2015. 

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical follows the inspiring true story of Carole’s remarkable rise to stardom – from being part of a hit songwriting team to becoming one of the most successful solo acts in popular music history.  But it wasn’t until her personal life began to crack that she finally managed to find her true voice. 

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical opened on Broadway at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on January 12, 2014 and closed on October 27, 2019 after 60 previews and 2,418 regular performances making it one of the top 30 longest running musicals in Broadway history. 

Riverside Theatre’s production of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical is Directed and Choreographed by DJ Salisbury and stars Sarah Bockel (Carole King), Jake Goz (Gerry Goffin), Sarah Ellis (Cynthia Weil), Nick Moulton (Barry Mann), Rachel Coloff (Genie Klein), Jonas Cohen (Don Kirshner), Kaelee M. Albritton (Marilyn Wald), Trevor Martin (Lou Adler), and Olivia Palmer (Betty).

The ensemble includes: D’Marreon M. Alexander, Gregory Carl Banks Jr., Christopher Brasfield, Kyrie Courter, Janaysia Gethers, Dominique Kempf, Jalon Matthews, Alexandra Reese, Mike Schwitter, Amber Mariah Talley, and Ryan Gregory Thurman. 

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