calherewecome

Last night was an extra special date night. We went to see “Beautiful – The Carole King Musical” at the Hollywood Pantages Theater. This is the touring version of the hit Broadway show. The show covers the story of Carole King’s beginnings in writing pop hits in the sixties and eventually her emergence as star performer in her own right.

We have done other shows but they were in downtown LA. The Pantages is a well restored Art Deco styled theater that is just so beautiful to look at. “Beautiful” is doing a three week engagement. It’s got to be a tough job doing a touring gig. I’m assuming everyone loves it.

The theater was sold out. It seems that most of the people attending were over the age of 60. There was a lot of gray hair. There some 40-50 somethings but not very many.

This was the first time that Paula and I managed to make it to Hollywood since we moved to LA four years ago. There is a reason that we don’t want to go to Hollywood. The traffic is just horrible.  I loved the Righteous Brothers baritone doing “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling”. It was fun to read the stars on the Hollywood Blvd. Some were performers that we had heard of, many we had never heard of.

Anyway, Paula had asked me if we could try to get tickets to the touring Hamilton that is in LA this summer. I looked at the prices. Yikes!! I’d need a second mortgage. Not that Beautiful was much cheaper. Anyways, I’m not much of a fan of rap music, and I am huge fan of Carole King.

At any rate, the show was awesome. I particularly loved the Shirelles and the Drifters. They nailed the dance routines. It felt like going back in time. The music and dancing was awesome. If you get the chance, go see it.

Carole King was played by Abby Mueller and Gerry Goffin by Liam Tobin.

Now for the links.

• Wikipedia entry for Carole King.
• Amazon link to purchase the soundtrack CD. (I just ordered it.).
• Carole King and James Taylor performance of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow“. On YouTube.
• Here’s the schedule for future tour dates.
• The Righteous Brothers on youtube.

Oh, a note to my lodge and OES pals. You’re going to be hearing many of these tunes on the piano over the next few meetings.

One final comment. I was amused how easily the stage crew moved sets on and off of the stage. Pianos, desks, couches and other props seemed to just magically glide on or off stage. Even the concert grand glided off like it was on an ice skating rink. I asked one of the ushers how did they do that. She told me that “We have a union shop”. I told her that must be it then.

This entry was posted on July 8, 2016 at 4:31 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Broadway, Carole King, Musicals