It’s a story as old as Broadway, but the story never gets old. A talented young entertainer gets cast in a Broadway show. It’s an anonymous role in the chorus that evolves into being a “swing” who can cover several character parts, and then promotion to being the star’s understudy.
And then, one day, the young entertainer becomes the star.
Honolulu will see a talented entertainer living that dream-come-true this week when Sara Sheperd opens in the title role of “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” Tuesday in the Blaisdell Concert Hall. Sheperd was a member of the Broadway cast throughout the show’s five-year run.
“Singing her songs is a treat every night, everything from ‘Natural Woman’ to ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?,’ ” Sheperd said of the experience during a recent telephone conversation. “I have been a part of the show since the beginning, since 2013, so to be able to actually step into the role is really full circle.”
“The really fun part is that I get to step into her shoes when she’s 16 years old, and sort of go on her whole ride, when she meets her writing partner, Gerry Goffin, then we sort of see what happens with their relationship and how their career blossoms together, and then also how (her solo album) ‘Tapestry’ was born. To go on a journey from a 16-year-old kid to somebody in their early 30s is really, really cool to do onstage every night.”
“Beautiful” uses the pop hits of the late 1950s and early 1960s to tell the story of King’s early life and career as an aspiring recording artist and phenomenally successful songwriter — many of the songs were co-written by King and Goffin. Other songs in the show are by the songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, close friends and colleagues of King and Goffin.
King, born Carol Joan Klein in Brooklyn, N.Y., was picking out melodies on the piano by the time she was 4. When she was in high school, she started a band, changed her name to Carole King and made demo records with Paul Simon, who at the time was another aspiring songwriter. She was also the inspiration for Neil Sedaka’s first Top 10 hit, “Oh! Carol” in 1959. Her response record single, “Oh! Neil,” a parody with lyrics written by Goffin, did not chart.
King met Goffin while they were students in college. They got married, dropped out of college, took “day jobs” and wrote songs at night. The success of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” in 1960 — recorded by the Shirelles, and the first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit by a Black “girl group” — established the couple as one of the leading pop songwriting teams of the early 1960s.
A short list of other Goffin-King hits includes “The Loco-Motion,” “Up on the Roof,” “Take Good Care of My Baby,” “Chains,” “One Fine Day,” “Go Away Little Girl” and “Pleasant Valley Sunday.”
In 1971, King finally achieved her long-desired goal of success as a recording artist. “It’s Too Late,” her first single in eight years, topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks. Later that same year, her second-ever solo album, “Tapestry,” topped the Billboard 200 Albums chart for 15 weeks, won four Grammy awards including album of the year, and sold more than 10 million copies.
Her story, told as “Beautiful,” opened on Broadway on Jan. 12, 2014, and closed on Oct. 27, 2019, after 60 previews and 2,418 regular performances.
“One of the things that surprises people always about the show is that most people don’t know that 13 years before ‘Tapestry’ she was a very, very successful writer, writing all these great hits with Gerry (Goffin) for other artists,” said Douglas McGrath, author of the musical that strings the hits together into the story of King’s life and times.
“I think it is great for people to know that in many ways — although we don’t say this in the show — that she is certainly the first major female composer of pop music,” McGrath explained. “Before Carole there were a few justly celebrated female lyricists. But if you look back from the late ’50s backward, there are no major women composers in pop music. There’s somebody who might have had one hit song, but no one had a sustained career the way male composers did. And so Carole is really the first woman who had a sustained and enormous career as a composer. All the women that followed were following in her footsteps. Carole had no footsteps to follow. She just had her talent to guide her.”
That’s the musical side of the story. McGrath developed the rest of it after lengthy interviews with Goffin (he died in 2014), King, Mann and Weil.
“What I really like most about ‘Beautiful’ is that it’s not what you expect when you go in. It’s about this extraordinary woman who finds her voice as a singer/songwriter, but what it’s really about at its heart is the power of forgiveness. If you can have the power to forgive someone who’s hurt you deeply, you’re not only helping the person, you’re helping yourself.
“It also says you can have a dream and go ahead and do it, and you can succeed, but the show also shows how hard she worked. It’s not depicted as all fun and games. If someone says they need a song by tomorrow morning, you have to have the song tomorrow morning for them.”
Sheperd met King when she joined the cast for their curtain call three times during the show’s Broadway run.
“She spent time (backstage) and talked to the whole cast,” Sheperd said. “She’s exactly what you would hope her to be as a human. Grounded and open and down to earth.”
Playing a living and much-loved star brings its own challenges, Sheperd added.
“Playing her onstage is obviously such a responsibility. I feel like there has to be a little bit of a disconnect from knowing that I’m playing a living person, because otherwise it can be totally overwhelming.”
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“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical”
>> Where: Blaisdell Concert Hall
>> When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sunday
>> Cost: $45-$135
>> Info: ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000
