Previews: BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL at Little Firehouse Theatre

Israeli-born Hadar Baron felt the earth move under her feet when she had the chutzpah to march over to a group of boys -- who were practicing for their elementary school talent show in The Promised Land -- demanding an audition as the lead singer of the band. Like the lionhearted Carole King, she didn’t fear appearing vulnerable; certainly not around any males. In retrospect, she was a “natural woman” in the making. 

Baron likened the show to the Israeli version of “American Idol,” Baron’s first taste of the stage. She sang a song translated from Hebrew called “Like Fire." In hindsight, it was musical kismet.

The charming performance in the 2000s was staged one year before Baron and her family moved to the US, the Land of Opportunity, to Tenafly, NJ where her father opted to relocate for his job. The move presented a win-win to live closer to family and to the Great White Way where she catapulted her singing career in the City of Dreams. A graduate of Ramapo College -- known for its robust music program whose famous alum includes The Front Bottoms -- Baron is now the lead role of Bergen County Players’ "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical." Like her eyebrow-raising performance as a third-grader, her new role is anything but coincidence.

King is Queen 

Besides her King-like grit as a child, Baron, like King’s “Tapestry,” recorded her EP “Gold” in three weeks and “knew what she wanted to do and went for it.” Baron even re-imagined her classic album cover  “Tapestry,” which spent five weeks in 1971 at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Easy Listening charts. The album depicts a barefoot King sitting at her window with her pet, in perfect nonchalance, reflecting her cool head in navigating hard times. Baron will perform a number of songs on that distinguished album -- which Rolling Stone ranked No. 36 on its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list -- in the musical staged by the Bergen County Players. The musical will debut tonight at the Little Firehouse Theatre in Oradell. One of them, Toni Stern’s poignant and honest, “It’s Too Late,” written about the acceptance of a failed romance, is “painfully relatable,” Baron says, and her favorite in King’s beloved catalog. 

“Everyone goes through heartbreak and that feeling of holding on when you have to let go and it’s better off that way,” Baron told BroadwayWorld. “It’s meaningful to a lot of people because it gives people a sense of validation, or the ache they’re feeling in a certain situation, this sense of relief of letting go and making peace with a situation that you couldn’t control. The song is an ode to closure, whether it’s for yourself or you’re actually singing to the person. It’s put so beautifully. It’s all about being positive when life doesn’t give you a reason to be positive. You have to wake up every morning with a smile on your face. Having that positive attitude does change the way your surroundings reflect that back to you. I try to live by that as much as I can.” 

"Beautiful: The Carole King Musical" is a biographical account loosely based on King’s tumultuous but incredible and inspirational life, from dealing with her parents’ divorce to navigating heartbreak, unplanned pregnancy, to her first — and iconic — concert at Carnegie Hall in 1971. 

King once said, “All I needed to do was sing with conviction, speaking my truth from the heart, honestly and straightforwardly, and to offer my words, ideas and music to the audience as if it were one collective friend that I'd known for a very long time.” 

Though admittedly “super nervous” before hitting the stage, for Baron, her life — just like anyone’s in these confusing times — seems to make sense.

“I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing… doing what you do with conviction … and that’s why I do it… to tell a story," said Baron. "I think music was Carole’s. It’s also mine.”

Purchase tickets to Beautiful: The Carole King Musical here.