Venice Theatre goes ‘Up on the Roof’ with hits by Carole King and James Taylor

Though they each have been involved in bringing shows to area community theaters for decades, it took the music of two popular folk and pop singers to bring together director and writer Scott Keys and musical director and accompanist Michelle Kasanofsky.

They are the creators of the Venice Theatre’s original musical revue “Up on the Roof: The Songs of Carole King and James Taylor.”

Both King and Taylor have been hitmakers, friends and collaborators since the 1960s. King had a hit with Taylor’s “You’ve Got a Friend” (as did he), and wrote songs for countless other singers with her first husband, Gerry Goffin, including “Will You Love me Tomorrow,” “A Natural Woman,” “The Locomotion” and “One Fine Day,” before she broke out as a solo artist with her groundbreaking album “Tapestry.” Taylor’s hits range from “Sweet Baby James” to “Fire and Rain,” “How Sweet it Is” and “Carolina in My Mind.”

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Many of those songs will find their way “Up on the Roof,” which Kasanofsky and Keys began working on earlier this year. It is a true revue with no dialogue, but they have come up with ideas to establish moods and characters for the five cast members performing the songs.

“I’ve done a lot of cabarets and you’re guided by a different set of rules,” Kasanofsky said. “In a revue style, like ‘Smokey Joe’s Cafe,’ there are no words. The music becomes the connecting tissue. I had specific goals in terms of the music and how you weave in and out of the songs and Scott had his ideas of how to weave in and out.”

Keys, who is staging the production, said he didn’t want to have just five people on stage. “I wanted to create personas. Why are they on this rooftop with this band,” he said. “My idea is that these five strangers come up to the roof to be alone in their isolation. We’ve giving them emotional baggage and situations. They come up to be alone only to discover they’re not alone up there at all. So that sense of isolation and contemplation turns into a celebration.”

The cast features familiar performers Caitlin Ellis and Jason Ellis, as well as three others who may be less well known, Tony Huffer, Priscilla Bagley who is new to the area and Igna Cote.

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“What’s really cool is that Igna is bilingual and speaks Spanish, so she’s doing one of the songs partially in Spanish,” Keys said.

The song list “is going to be really familiar. The songs are so iconic,” Kasanofsky said. “And Scott loved both of them. I don’t think you could mention one of their songs that Scott didn’t know.”

But it is possible there are songs like “No Easy Way Down,” which was recorded by Dusty Springfield and Barbra Streisand, that people might not realize were written by King, Keys said.

He put together some biographical information about King and Taylor and divided it among the five characters as background to help each actor find a special connection to the music and lyrics, though there is no intention to tell the life story of either singer.

The show was originally intended to be presented in the Jervey mainstage theater before it was heavily damaged during Hurricane Ian. Moving it to the newly created performance space in the adjacent Raymond Center meant some adjustments in how Keys was staging it and how Tim Wisgerhof was designing it.

“They asked us to be flexible, and that’s what we have done,” Keys said. “We were trying to keep our minds open to anything from who might be cast to how the show would. We were just happy we could move forward with it after the storm. We didn’t know at first if it would happen.”

‘Up on the Roof: The Songs of Carole King and James Taylor’

Conceived by Scott Keys and Michelle Kasanofsky and directed by Keys. Runs Jan. 10-29 in the Venice Theatre’s Raymond Center, 140 W. Tampa Ave., Venice. Tickets are $37, $21 for college students and educators, $15 for youth. 941-488-1115; venicetheater.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Venice Theatre revue salutes hitmakers Carole King and James Taylor