In the few hours that Elizabeth Nestlerode gets to inhabit King’s shoes, she knows she’s just scratching the surface. “We only cover from when she’s 16 to 29,” Nestlerode said of her title role as King in “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” at Albany’s Capital Repertory Theatre. “She’s done so much beyond that, but just those 13 years gave us enough for a full musical.
” “Beautiful,” a jukebox show that opened on Broadway in 2014 and saw Jessie Mueller’s portrayal of King earn a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, tells the story of King’s early life and career, her fruitful songwriting partnership and tumultuous romantic relationship with Gerry Goffin, and her eventual shift from songwriter to performer with the release of her landmark 1971 album “Tapestry." For Nestlerode, finding her footing as King was a delicate process. “You want to find that balance of honoring who they are and kind of finding their essence, without doing an impression of them,” she said.
Stepping into the role began with lots of research on Nestlerode’s part. She did plenty of reading. Sheila Weller’s biography “Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon — and the Journey of a Generation” was a valuable resource, as was King’s own memoir “A Natural Woman.
” Nestlerode also found King’s voice through listening to both “Tapestry” and “The Legendary Demos,” a compilation of demo recordings King made fr.