Carole King’s Troubled Life Revealed on Gulfshore Stage

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical is a stellar example of what makes bio-musicals so appealing. At almost any point in the musical, one can look around and see audience members’ lips moving, mouthing lyrics that embodied a life lesson, a significant emotional event or a sentimental moment.

Those who haven’t had that opportunity have two more weeks at Gulfshore Playhouse, where the musical is pouring out hit after hit and laying bare the fraught life of a songwriter whose troubles we never knew when we were dancing to her music. For baby boomers, the joy of bobbing heads in our seats is tempered by the realization our entertainment was created by human beings who suffered disappointments and discouragement the same way we did—and perhaps worse.

Both words and music are made irresistible through its treatment by Gulfshore Playhouse. It brought in Julia Bain, who imbues her singing voice with King’s recognizable glint of steel and her character with an authentic vulnerability. Bain adds her own soulful touch to the melody of

“Natural Woman” and creates an open-eyed post-mortem to King’s marriage with “It’s Too Late.”

She’s surrounded by equals: Zachary Freier-Harrison is her bipolar lyrics partner and husband,Gerry Goffin. Madison Claire Parks and Oliver Prose as Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann keep pace as their friendly cowriting competition down the hall, equally talented songwriters who—unfortunately for Broadway bio-musicals—are a much more normal romance.

And those who couldn’t stand music impresario Don Kirshner’s nasal voice on his “Rock Concert” TV series need to bring earplugs for Abe Goldfarb’s perfect rendition.

Matt Lenz, who hasn’t been in the director’s seat here since 2012, doesn’t let the story get consumed by the music. King, née Klein, had to bargain with her mother to even be allowed in Times Square; covered for her husband’s drugs and numerous affairs; scrambled for outlandish demands including the Shirelles’ famous insistence on a string section; and found her own voice only after her marriage died.

But what a voice it was. King churned out several decades of music at Kirshner’s warren of offices at 1650 Broadway in an especially fertile era for rock ‘n’ roll, and her story is a motherlode of singable, danceable melodies. Beautiful: The Carole King Musical plows throughs amples of the era’s music to give the audience a taste of the teeming talent inNew York at theBrill Building and Kirshner’s studios: “Love Potion No. 9,” “Poison Ivy,” “Stupid Cupid” and “Yakkety Yak.”

But it devotes more time to the Goffin-King hits, and this production does not spare the color. The Drifters get shimmering tuxes and snappy moves from Dan Dunn’s choreography, andJacques Linder-Long nails that falsetto ending to “Up On the Roof” with an impish grin straight to the audience. “Pleasant Valley Sunday”—yes, it’s a Goffin-King song, too—gets a bit too sunny a take with its picket fences and flowers for the sardonic lyrics it gave the Monkees. But if the Shirelles’ floaty pink chiffon seems a little more Met Gala than high school sweethearts with “One Fine Day,” that was actually the way they dressed for their TV appearances.

The cast works for its money. Couches, coffee tables and offices roll in and out with actors pushing, and at least three pianos glide around the stage at some point. Dalton Hamilton uses lighting to make Anna Beyersdorfer’s curling office stairways melt away and living rooms takeover. And we don’t want to forget them because we can’t see them: Lon Hoyt conducts a note-perfect nine-piece orchestra with a robust sound. You will have to turn around to applaud them after the show; they are in an upstairs room with Hoyt’s conducting streamed to the actors onstage from the rear of the hall.

Costume designer Johanna Pan keeps the stars’ clothing in perspective; one can see King bloom sartorially as well as personally as the show progresses.

This was the most engaging production we’ve seen of this story, and we’d go again. As long as we can move our lips.

‘Beautiful: The Carole King Musical’

When: Various times through May 31

Where: Gulfshore Playhouse, 100 Goodlette-Frank Road, Naples

Tickets: Premium,$174; standard, $164; value, $44; gulfshoreplayhouse.org