Carole King, with her voice or her pop songs or both, dominated the airwaves as well as everywhere musical theater appeared in the last part of the last century. Carole’s Kings now dominates an intimate stage at Florida Studio Theater to strike up its summer cabaret series. And striking it is, presenting a variety of vocals and their relationship to Carole King’s entire career achievements. It may seem a different kind of treat to hear a woman’s career explained and her songs sung by men only. Yet so many of her compositions were made famous by such males as The Righteous Brothers (“Too Late Baby”). “Jazz Man” was written for Ray Charles. These songs and their like figure prominently in the revue as sung by energetic Jordan Aragon, romantic Trey Harrington, and frequent lead narrator and also pianist Ken Lear. The show gets more complicated when the guys try to fit in “Natural Woman.” A “Christmas Paradise” sequence laid in the tropics is also a bit of a stretch, but some in hot and humid summery Sarasota may get psychologically cool watching the men in stocking caps and Ken Lear wielding a holiday wreath. In between songs, narration manages to get in a lot of facts in a pleasing, natural way aided by pertinent projections on both sides of the colorful, curtained stage background. Recorded music with onstage piano and sound blend well. Fans of Carole King will love favorites like “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and “Chains of Love.” Anyone less familiar with these will surely enjoy a final medley of King’s songs for such films as “You’ve Got Mail,” “Murphy’s Law,” and “A League of Their Own.” Finally, the guys at FST’s Court Cabaret give an overall royal treatment to Carole King’s music in a planned Encore that is happily inclusive.
