Lambertville, NJ
6 September 2025
I knew going into this show that I was not very familiar with Carole King’s work. In fact, there were only a total of four songs in the entire show that I actually knew — the most notable, of course being the song “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”.
This show has all of the making for a wonderful show: a live band, an impactful story, overcoming trials and tribulations to make it out on top, catchy songs, amazing singing, and great actors.
Yet, I found it hard to get behind the story.
Carole King is an American singer‐songwriter who dreamt of writing songs, but it was not considered a job for a woman at the time. Carole (played by Jenna Parrilla Alvino) at the age of 16, had skipped two grades, landing her as a freshman in college. Her mother, Genie King (played by Joan Hoffman) discourages Carole from pursuing her dreams in favour of becoming a teacher. She is also still bitter about her divorce from Carole’s father — he had cheated on her.
And it is not long before we meet a Sophomore at the college in which Carole instantly has a crush on. His name is Gerry Goffin (played by Tristan Takacs) and much more importantly, he is a lyricist, which is something Carole needs because she can write the music, but not the lyrics. And Gerry can write the lyrics, but not the music.
Gerry and Carole team up in order to have success selling their music for bands to sing. But Gerry and Carole do not just become business partners — they begin dating and more than that, they begin a sexual relationship. Which is problematic when you remember that Carole has skipped two grades and is only 16 years old when she falls pregnant. The average college freshman is 18 years old. The average college sophomore is 19 years old. And if she were an average college freshman, this would be no problem. But she wasn’t. She was 16 and he was an adult. I understand that “times were different”, I understand that he “did the right thing” by marrying her once she became pregnant. But for not a single other character to even mention “hey, that’s not really okay” seemed odd. Even Carole’s mother was concerned over the fact that Gerry repeatedly stepped out on the marriage, but seemed to have not a care in the world that the relationship was predatory in nature. When you cannot ignore the power dynamic between Carole and Gerry nor the fact that she was a minor — it is really, really hard to root for that relationship to work out.
Carole and Gerry do in fact find success writing songs and even earn themselves an office working under the famed producer, Don Kirshner (played by Lynn Baskin). I did find this casting choice to be a bit of an odd one. Don Kirshner, the real life human, was a white man. Lynn Baskin, the actor portraying Don in this production, happens to be a black man. Normally colour blind casting is something I absolutely applaud. But there is a racial element to this show that simply is not delved into.
While some of the bands that Don Kirshner produced music for were bands that were not composed of white members, the music was still “white” music. Almost everything was turned into something traditionally white music — even when sung by bands like the Shirelles or The Drifters. In fact, there was only one scene in which race was a factor at all. Carole wrote a song that was given to the Shirelles to sing, but the Shirelles want the song changed. They wanted it to be “less twangy” and “more elegant”. In other words, the song needed to still be white, but not country, because that’s a white genre that black singers couldn’t get away with, especially during the shows time period.
Beyond that, race never really seems to be mentioned. And I think it was a missed opportunity. I understand that the script does not explicitly have scenes that go into depth about the racial tensions in both the time period and within the confines of the music industry. But having a historically white producer, who is likely not understanding why that song was “too twangy” for the Shirelles would have at least implied some of that tension. After all, if Don Kirshner were a black music producer, would he have ever given Carole King’s music to them? Or would he have been more socially aware of what would have been seen as acceptable.
That being said, there is literally nothing I can say about the performance of Lynn Baskin. He was a wonderful singer, his comedic timing was on point, his acting was more than believe. It’s purely a question of what can be shown without being said and ultimately what the goal of the creative team behind this specific production is. If the goal is to not really bring race into the picture — or rather, it isn’t a goal to bring race into the picture, then there really is no need for Don Kirshner to be white.
The characters of Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann (played by Joan Schubin and Patrick Lavery, respectively) — ultimately they became another song writing team working under Don Kirshner, who also start a romantic and sexual relationship. What made these two characters feel special was very simply the chemistry between the two actors. It really did feel like we were watching love blossom between then and that was beautiful.
The only really negative thing that I can say about this specific production of this show is this — some of the wigs were distractingly bad wigs. And when the wigs are the worst part about any shows production, then you’ve got a pretty damn good production.
There is one more actor in this show that without a doubt deserves a shout out. Nicholas La Russa, who played a member of The Drifters, just has such a pure voice. I have seen this specific actor in a number of shows at Music Mountain Theatre and each and every time, I am blown away by Nicholas’ singing ability.
