This 'Natural Woman' never gets old

“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” is weaving a tapestry of song on the Asolo Rep stage. Carole King’s prolific music is the main thread, but she wasn’t a one-woman band. 

Douglas McGrath’s musical shows that no artist is an island. Like most highly creative people, King did her best work with others. At age 16, she joined a creative community — Dimension Records’ team of lyricists and composers in the Brill Building in New York City. 

Thanks to a mix of astronomically improbable luck and prodigious talent, King entered that charmed circle. After that, she was off and running. You know she’ll wind up at Carnegie Hall. But let’s not get ahead of the story …

King’s odyssey begins with an unscheduled audition with music producer Don Kirshner (Matthew Feld). She shows up in his office and sings “It Might as Well Rain Until September” — and that song is her golden ticket. 

Kirshner knows hit-making talent when he sees it — and immediately puts King to work with other songwriting savants in the Brill Building hit factory. King quickly teams up with Gerry Goffin (Devin Archer), a high school crush now studying chemistry at Queens College. King and Goffin have their own chemistry. Before you can say, “unplanned pregnancy,” they get married. 

As to the beautiful music they make, the dynamic duo’s hits include “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” (The Shirelles), “The Locomotion” (Little Eva) and “Some Kind of Wonderful” (The Drifters). 

King and Goffin make friends with another songwriting couple down the hall at the Brill Building: Cynthia Weil (Emma Bespolka) and Barry Mann (Ryan Vona). Mann and Weil’s string of hits include “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” (The Righteous Brothers) and “On Broadway” (The Drifters), but they can’t compete with King and Goffin. 

After a few more chart-toppers, Goffin thinks he rushed into marriage with King. It’s now the mid-60s and Goffin wants an "open" marriage. King’s heartbroken, but puts up with the arrangement for a few years.

She finally wises up and divorces Goffin (“The girls deserve something better. And you know what? So do I.”) By the end of the 1960s, King finds her voice. After a decade of writing for others, she finally sings her own songs, and she sings them her own way. 

Her arrangements get back to basics. Piano, guitar, vocals, period. King’s personal liberation is in perfect synch with the nascent women’s liberation movement. Her music finds a new audience, and her career takes off.

King’s solo flight culminates in 1971 with “Tapestry,” her groundbreaking solo album with timeless tracks like "(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman" (also a hit for Aretha Franklin), "It's Too Late" and the song that gives the show its title. King brings the album’s songs to Carnegie Hall in a solo concert and also performs her renditions of '60s hits she co-wrote. Her career flies high in the years that follow.

Shelley Butler’s direction also soars. She’s directed “Beautiful” before, in touring productions where she had limited creative control. In this go-round, Butler’s got the power.

Her vision honors McGrath’s script — which zips like a yo-yo between the characters’ personal lives and the creative arena where thousands either dig you or don’t. King’s “real” self isn’t public or private; it's both. Butler smartly plays both sides.

The actors can all sing. Or the singers can all act. Either way, they’re all good.

Knitel’s King begins as a behind-the-scenes lyricist with a private life, and then steps into the spotlight as a confident singer/songwriter. Knitel beautifully captures King’s personal and artistic evolution.

Archer’s Goffin has a brooding, rebel-without-a-cause vibe. He’s cool, but maybe it’s an act. (You’re not sure, and neither is he.) His character has artistic ambitions of his own — and enough self-doubt and insecurity to sink a marriage made in musical heaven. 

Vona’s Mann is a gangly hypochondriac and a musical mastermind. High IQ; high-pitched nasal voice. It’s very Jerry Lewis, though he doesn’t break the furniture. Bespolka’s Weil is sexy and chic, without a trace of self-doubt. She’s great, and she knows it. Their characters are the perfect odd couple — until they aren’t. 

Feld’s Kirshner is an unflappable human dousing-rod who instantly detects songwriting talent. And totally supports it — just so long as his lyricists and composers deliver.

Angela Steiner’s music direction blends high production values with heart. At the beginning, you get a glimpse of how songs born as piano riffs in small rooms become elaborate routines in TV studios and concert halls. 

Steiner deftly paints the primary colors of King’s musical metamorphosis and her journey from New York's Brill Building to producer Lou Adler's LA recording studio at A&M Records. Brava! 

Banji Aborisade’s choreography evokes the slick precision of early 1960s bands like “The Drifters” and “The Shirelles” and then the dionysiac rhythms of the hippie era. 

Alejo Vietti’s costumes start off with sharkskin shimmer and pastel flounce in the early 1960s. He also shows King’s character development as she relaxes into a bohemian groove. 

Reid Thompson’s versatile set captures the flash and filigree of the 1960s and 1970s music scene with bold colors and hip details. Kudos to lighting designer Alan Edwards for the neon records above the stage (which keep score on the various couples’ hits) and the big “How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?” sign. The show, of course, answers that question. That said, it’s not a documentary.

The “Beautiful” world on stage isn’t the real world. The musical simplifies King’s life story and speeds things up with zippy scene and song transitions. The tunes make spot-on commentaries about the songwriters’ daily lives. 

To an artist, everyday life is just material. But real life is never quite so neat — or entertaining. “Beautiful” streamlines the tale, and keeps you entertained. Fine by me.

The musical’s core truths shine through in well-drawn characters, not “Behind the Music” cliches. “Beautiful” has no bad guys. (Music industry bullies and lovers who don’t believe in the star’s gift, etc.) This show doesn’t demonize Goffin or make Kirshner a dark eminence. Despite divorces, broken hearts and rough times, they stay with King for her triumphant concert. And that answers the big neon question …

How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?

With a little help from your friends.