… I’d like to know that your love
Is a love I can be sure of
So tell me now, and I won’t ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow? (Gerry Goffin and Carole King)
In 1960, Gerry Goffin and Carole King posed the question in the lyric, “Will you still love me tomorrow?,” in a pop hit that would be recorded by The Shirelles, marking the first time that an African-American female group would top the Billboard Top 100 Chart. Eleven years later, King would include the same song Will You Love Me Tomorrow on her solo hit album Tapestry.
Musically, King would finally answer that question three decades later in Now and Forever, which was featured on the soundtrack for the film A League of Their Own. The lyrics open with “Now and forever/you are a part of me/And the memory cuts like a knife/ and the song concludes, “Now and forever/I will always think of you/Now and forever/I will always be with you.”
Now and Forever came long after the roughly first 15 years of King’s extraordinary musical career that are covered in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. While this song is not part of this biographical jukebox spectacular, the sentiments of its lyrics are foreshadowed in the musical’s storyline.
Marking the second time this season that Pioneer Theatre Company has staged a jukebox theatrical extravaganza, this latest production of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical stands out for spine-tingling vocals that are full-throttle tributes to the music of the famed songwriter’s career up to the time that she decided to go solo.
Last fall, PTC’s Jersey Boys was, as The Utah Review summarized, an “exhilarating cavalcade of pop music excellence, topped by a lead who emulates Valli’s famous falsetto voice with perfectly pitched heft and expression.” While the book narrative in Jersey Boys is better constructed, the musical stakes in Beautiful (book by Douglas McGrath) push it to the top of the theatrical jukebox genre.
The production also marks the first co-production between Pioneer Theatre Company, which will feature the musical first, and Geva Theatre in Rochester, New York. After playing in Salt Lake City, the production will be shipped to Geva (including the original designs, as well as most of the cast) for a second run from May 28 through June 29, 2025.
No question, Sara Sheperd is dynamite as King and the cast and pit orchestra are at their vocal best. But the crème de la crème in vocals comes from the roof-raising performances of actors in the roles of The Shirelles and The Drifters. This is an impressively deep bench of singing excellence: major props to Elexis Morton, Tyler Symone, Hannah Camille Hall and Kianna Kelly-Futch as The Shirelles, and to Travis Keith Battle, Chris Richie, Nathan Andrew Riley and Cory Simmons as The Drifters. Likewise, Grace Ellis Solomon is on fire as Little Eva.
Directed by Karen Azenberg, the show snaps up the right pace to shine the brightest lights on the music, which makes it easy to forget occasional incoherent lapses in how the biographical narrative unfolds. The show opens in the late 1950s with the familiar details of King’s teen years, forgoing her mother’s wishes of learning classical music on the piano and instead latching onto the spontaneous skyrocketing energy of pop songs. At Queens College, she meets Gerry Goffin (with fine stage interpretation by Anthony Sagaria) who, as history indicates, was working on a musical about beatniks. From there, King and Goffin formed their partnership and soon were married. Of course, one of the earliest hits Will You Love Me Tomorrow would send The Shirelles to their history-making success atop the Billboard industry charts.
Music history is where Beautiful is the strongest. King and Goffin were among the most successful songwriters in the 1960s, when the competition was at its apex. The side story of another songwriting duo (who would also be eventually married), Barry Mann (Stephen Christopher Anthony) and Cynthia Weil (Lee Alexandra Harrington) is very effective at portraying the extraordinary intensity in the playing field of songwriting at the time. Props also go to Jason Andrew Hackney for his portrayal of Don Kirshner. He reminds us how the golden ear of a legend — not a musician or songwriter — brought pop music to stupendous heights. It is a character that is historically accurate in the show, as Kirshner turned Aldon Music into a creative empire in New York City’s Brill Building.
While the success of King and Goffin working together trailed off later in the 1960s, their marriage also became more turbulent and they divorced in 1968. Details in this part of the story for Beautiful came from King’s own memoir, A Natural Woman, which was published in 2010. She wrote about Goffin’s mental health struggles tied to LSD as well as a diagnosis of manic depression. Sagaria picks the right acting notes in these scenes, to which Sheperd responds with the right chemistry. This is the show’s strongest narrative element.
Beautiful ends in 1971, after King moved to California’s Laurel Canyon and her solo album Tapestry rose to the top of the charts in 1971. Shepherd is at her finest in the show’s final five songs, which came from Tapestry. She is keen and spot on with articulating the nuances in a journey of maturation that put King’s lyrical muse at a level that would encapsulate how 1970s pop music eventually would stay fresh and timeless in the ears of a 21st century audience. Indeed, every performer in this production astutely telegraphs the merited interpretation of King’s place in music history. Just as impressive is the 12-piece pit orchestra, led by Helen Gregory.
PTC’s run continues through March 1. For tickets and more information, see the Pioneer Theatre Company website.