For singer Natalie Weiss, professional fulfillment comes not necessarily from taking to the stage, but from shaping it. It’s the pleasure of collaboration that eclipses the spotlight — a light in which, despite this sentiment, she tends to find herself.
That’s a trait Weiss shares with Carole King, whom she will portray in Olney Theatre Center’s production of “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” which begins performances July 3.
The musical tells the story of King’s ascension from unknown to chart-topping songwriter to indomitable star in her own right. As Weiss notes, King didn’t necessarily want to be famous.
“She didn’t want to be a singer, and she just wanted to write music,” Weiss says on a recent Zoom call. “She ended up having a different path. I guess you could parallel it with my career, which happened by-accident-on-purpose.”
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Weiss goes on to explain the unique track that led her to, at age 39, take on her biggest role yet and amass more than half a million followers on TikTok and nearly 250,000 on YouTube along the way.
Best known for her “Breaking Down the Riffs” series, Weiss is primarily a vocal coach — privately (in sessions that cost over $200 for 30 minutes) and to flocks of up-and-comers on social media. But her penchant for teaching started in high school.
“People would ask, ‘Is this pitchy?’ and I’m like, ‘Do you want me to tell you?’” she says. “They trusted my opinion. We would sit in my parents’ living room and sing through tones, and I would be at the piano, very ‘You’ve Got a Friend.’”
Soon after studying musical theater at Penn State, Weiss joined a national 25th anniversary tour of “Les Misérables” as a swing, covering for absent ensemble members and spending many hours “bored backstage.” In that downtime, she created her “Breaking Down the Riffs” YouTube series, which earned millions of views by dissecting the singing technique of pop stars’ most challenging riffs.
“I ended up testing this method out on my wardrobe supervisor, who was tone deaf,” Weiss says. “She could do it, so I knew that it was an attainable ‘pop singing for dummies’ kind of method.”
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Since “Les Mis,” she’s spent more time teaching than onstage herself, recently averaging only about one engagement every year and a half.
“I’m a ruminator, I’m anxious, so if I was playing a piece and reading the music and helping [a student], I would have 45 minutes of, ‘Oh my God, I wasn’t thinking about myself, I was helping someone else,’” she says. “I was just invigorated by these sessions, but going into an audition, I’m getting rejected, staring at one spot on the wall and having my 16 bars cut short.”
Last year, she was brought on to play the Witch just before the start of a production of “Into the Woods” at Chicago’s Paramount Theatre after the original actress left to pursue a Broadway opportunity. The quick turnaround was a trigger to her anxiety, which she opened up about for the first time in videos online.
“I was really hesitant about it,” she says. “But I heard from so many people when I posted that who said, ‘I had no idea you were anxious or nervous.’ … It was crazy to see how many people related to it, how we’re not alone.”
She phased out “Breaking Down the Riffs” in 2017, though most of her videos nowadays still walk the line between relatable and educational. Her most popular involve clips from her coaching sessions, sometimes with stars like a young Reneé Rapp, or the sparkly moments when students surprise themselves with a thus-untapped riff or high note.
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“Beautiful” director Amy Anders Corcoran, a fellow Penn State alumna, says she watches Weiss’s videos with her 9-year-old daughter.
“One of the things that I really discovered about Carole King as I was going through this process is her joy for music and performance, even if it wasn’t her own,” Corcoran says. “And if you watch Natalie’s videos, Natalie has that. Carole and Natalie both have this amazing thing as artists where they’re not jealous. They’re so supportive of other artists and other singers and other performers.”
During casting, Corcoran aimed to find a lead who was multifaceted — a piano player in addition to a singer, dancer and actress. And as someone fresh to the role, Corcoran says, Weiss will bring “joy and levity” when “we all desperately need it.”
Corcoran often asks during rehearsals, “What would Carole do?” Weiss says. “When our world is crashing down, [Carole]’s full of hope. I need to channel that sometimes.”
If you go
Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney Sandy Spring Rd., Olney, Md. olneytheatre.org.
Dates: July 3 through Aug. 25.
Prices: $31-$96.
