Graff and Wopat to Star in Workshop of King & Goffin Musical

Producers Richard East and Tim Woods today announced a staged reading presentation of the new musical Natural Woman featuring the songs of acclaimed songwriting team Gerry Goffin and Carole King.  With a book by Martin Bergman, Rita Rudner, Michael Blakemore, Janis Hirsch & HAnnie Rayson, Natural Woman is a contemporary love story set in New York calling upon the catalogue of over fifty Top 40 hits by the legendary team as well as newly penned Goffin-King music.

The staged reading presentation of Natural Woman will take place in New York City in mid-June.  Producers will announce plans for Broadway shortly.  The
presentation cast will include Tony Award-nominee Tom Wopat (Chicago, Annie Get Your Gun) and Tony Award-winner Randy Graff (A Class Act, Les Miserables, City of Angels).

Gerry Goffin and Carole King met at Queens College in 1958, beginning a long and successful collaboration.  With King composing music on piano and Goffin penning lyrics, the duo is responsible for such hit songs as "Natural Woman," "Up on the Roof," "One Fine Day" and "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?"  Together and individually  Gerry Goffin and Carole King have helped define four decades of contemporary music.  The songwriting duo has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriter's Hall of Fame and in 2004, were honored at the Grammy Awards, where they received the prestigious Trustee Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

The only director to have won the Tony Award for both a play, Copenhagen, and a musical, Kiss Me, Kate, in the same year, Michael Blakemore also received nominations for his productions of Joe Egg, Noises Off, City of Angels and The Life.  In England, he was Laurence Olivier's associate at The National Theatre and directed him in Long Day's Journey Into Night.  The most recent of his many West End successes was Three Sisters and the current production of Embers.