Beautiful Extends Booking to 4 January 2015

The Carole King biopic musical Beautiful has extended its booking period, and is now taking bookings through 4 January 2015. The production opened at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on 12 Jan 2014, following previews from 21 November 2013.

The musical opened on Broadway to generally positive reviews, with most critics praising the music and performances whilst finding the book ad staging weak: "Friendly, formulaic bio-musical" (NY Times); "Marc Bruni's production only occasionally resurrects the bubbly verve and energy of those glorious songs"(NYP); "If you go to "Beautiful" for the songs, you'll probably have a great time. Just don't expect anything more"(Record).

It received two Tony Awards at the 2014 ceremony, including Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for the show's star Jesse Mueller who sang live with Carole King at the awards.

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical charts the rise of the famous singer-songwriter as she goes from being Carol Klein, a simple girl from Brooklyn to an international recording artist. It shows her fighting her way into the record business as a teenager and, by the time she reached her twenties, had the husband of her dreams and a career writing hits for the biggest acts in rock 'n' roll.

The current cast features Jessie Mueller (Carole King), Jake Epstein (Gerry Goffin), Anika Larsen (Cynthia Weil), Jarrod Spector (Barry Mann), Jeb Brown (Don Kirshner), Liz Larsen (Genie Klein), Ashley Blanchet, E. Clayton Cornelious, Joshua Davis, Alysha Deslorieux, Kevin Duda, Carly Hughes, Sara King, Rebecca LaChance, Douglas Lyons, Chris Peluso, Gabrielle Reid, Arbender Robinson, Rashidra Scott, Sara Shepard, Antoine L. Smith and Melvin Tunstall.

The musical features music by Gerry Goffin, Carole King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil with a book by Douglas McGrath. It is produced on Broadway by Paul Blake and Sony/ATV Music Publishing, and features direction by Marc Bruni, design by Derek McLane, sound design by Brian Ronan, lighting design by Peter Kaczorowski, choreography by Josh Prince and costumes by Alejo Vietti.

- by Dom O'Hanlon