It’s been 14 years since Meggie Cansler Ness sat around a table with fellow cast members of St. Louis’ Muny Theatre’s “Footloose,” participating in the very first table read of a new musical.
“We just thought it was such a brilliant script, and so smart,” she recalls. “We went back to New York, and I got an off-Broadway show, so I was kind of removed from the project because my time constraints didn’t handle it. But man, oh man, when I saw it on Broadway, I just thought, it’s fantastic. It’s perfect. … The script holds up, and the music, of course, is just phenomenal.”
That musical was “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” the Tony Award-winning story of King, her partner Gerry Goffin, and fellow songwriters Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann.
In those 2010 readings, Ness read the part of Weil, and now, more than a decade later, she’s playing the role for the first time at Red Mountain Theatre, where “Beautiful” opens Friday and runs through Aug. 11.
“Beautiful” tells the story of King, the songwriter behind classics such as “You’ve Got a Friend,” “Up On the Roof,” “It’s Too Late,” “I Feel the Earth Move” and others, and the writers populating New York’s Brill Building in the 1970s.
Ness, whose Broadway career started with “The Apple Tree” and included a year-and-a-half in “Wicked” and understudying the lead role of Glinda in the first national tour plays Weill, whose songs included “On Broadway” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.”
“They all worked in this very small building, and they’re back-to-back, playing piano, coming up with songs,” Ness says. “We’re in a competition, but they still have this friendship, and it’s just so endearing, and they’re there for each other.”
Ness sees a lot of herself in Weill.
“She wanted her career so badly and didn’t want to give it over to a partnership, a relationship,” Ness says. “She just wanted her career, and I can understand that 110%. My husband and I have been together for nine years, but he’s like, ‘Oh, I tamed a New York feral street cat,’ and I just laugh about that, and that’s exactly how Barry felt about Cynthia. It’s just like we have our eye on the prize, and then somebody melts your heart, and gosh, darn, that’s how you end up.”
The Broadway veteran, who is in Birmingham because of a longtime friendship with Red Mountain Artistic Director Roy Lightner, calls the talent in the “Beautiful” cast “just fantastic.”
“The cast is so talented,” she says. “We’re getting to know each other, and I was like, ‘You live in Birmingham, and you live in Birmingham.’ Most of the cast is from Birmingham, and I don’t know what’s in the water, but holy cow.”
After “Beautiful,” Ness will return to Berkeley, California. She doesn’t know what her next project will be, but she does know she’s looking forward to a certain movie that’s coming out around Thanksgiving.
“I can’t wait,” she says of the “Wicked” film. “Years ago, they were in talks of doing it with Reese Witherspoon as Glinda, but now it’s a decade-and-a-half later and it’s Ariana Grande. … I’m so excited about it.”
“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” at Red Mountain Theatre July 19-Aug. 11. Starring Alison McCartan as Carole King, Blake West as Gerry Goffin, Meggie Cansler Ness as Cynthia Weil, Madison Adams Hagler as Barry Mann.
