‘Beaches’ on Broadway Puts Female Friendship in the Spotlight

Co-creator Iris Rainer Dart and costar Kelli Barrett on the power of their moving new musical

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A story of profound love and loss, Beaches is often called a tearjerker. But Iris Rainer Dart, who wrote the original novel that inspired the hit 1988 movie and now the Broadway musical at the Majestic Theatre, says the story is full of hope because the female friendship at its center endures—even in the wake of tragedy.

Beaches chronicles the lifelong friendship between scrappy aspiring star Cee Cee Bloom (Jessica Vosk, taking on the brassy Bette Midler role) and bookish blue blood Bertie White (Kelli Barrett, as Barbara Hershey’s more demure character, named Hillary in the movie). They initially connect as children on the Jersey Shore in the 1950s and remain BFFs for the next 30 years, though there are certainly bumps in the friendship, often stemming from mutual envy. There’s a reason the song “Wish I Could Be Like You” gets two reprises.

Beaches‘ road to Broadway also experienced ups and downs. The musical had its world premiere in 2014 at Signature Theatre in Virginia with a different composer, cast and creative team. This iteration of the show features music by Mike Stoller (Smokey Joe’s Cafe), lyrics by Dart and a book by Dart and the late Thom Thomas. Dart has been the project’s constant and champion, which is fitting since Beaches is inspired by her close relationship with her well-to-do maternal cousin, Sandy.

As the daughter of a Jewish immigrant social worker at a settlement house in Pittsburgh, Dart recalls wearing hand-me-downs from her wealthier kin as a child. “They had money and we didn’t,” Dart says. But what her family lacked in assets they made up for in experiences. “My father was instrumental in the forming of the Irene Kaufmann Settlement Curtaineers, an interracial theatre group,” Dart notes, adding that she grew up performing in plays with Jewish and Black actors in the years leading up to the Civil Rights movement.

The idea for Beaches was born when Sandy told her, “When one of us dies, I hope it’s me because I couldn’t live in a world that didn’t have you in it.”

“Iris has lived with these characters for a very long time,” says Barrett, a Broadway vet and longtime fan of the Beaches movie. “There’s a lot of wisdom there, and a lot to learn from her” in terms of informing her performance.

While Cee Cee and Bertie are essentially the same gal pals from the novel, Barrett says Dart has been open to the actors’ feedback and interpretations. “She’s been very supportive,” Barrett says. “She makes us feel like we’re taking care of her characters.”

The Broadway production is a full-circle moment for Dart, who got her start creating musicals at Carnegie Mellon University with classmate Stephen Schwartz and performing in summer stock on the beach, just like Cee Cee. “Every step of my life feels as if it was leading here,” Dart says.

For Cee Cee’s fabulous variety show, she even drew on her time working on two Cher TV series in the 1970s, when she was often the sole woman writer in the room. This was during second-wave feminism, a period explored earlier this season in Liberation, a play Dart mentions multiple times. “I was in those [consciousness-raising] groups,” she says. “It was a tough fight.”

That fight is reflected in Cee Cee’s and Bertie’s respective journeys—the former must contend with an entertainment industry that resists singular, outspoken women, while the latter battles traditional gender roles as her mother and fiancé discourage her from going to school or becoming a lawyer.

“I don’t think I was saying, ‘I want to tell a story about strong women,'” admits Dart. “I just wanted to tell a story about women that I knew intimately, and the women of my era had to be strong in order to survive.” 

While Cee Cee is openly combative, Bertie is rebellious in her own way. “I get this arc from naïve and wide-eyed to this very grounded, no bullshit babe,” says Barrett about Bertie, who eventually ditches her jerk of a husband and has a child on her own. “She has to overcome her upbringing to make the right choices for her kid.”

That part of the story is particularly resonant for Barrett, who was raised by a single mom. “My mother had to do the same, and thank god she did,” she says. “I think of my mom [during the show], and single moms everywhere. It could be very easy to paint Bertie as an old-fashioned girl, but I see her as a beautiful bird trapped in a cage, and Cee Cee has got the key”—an ideal metaphor since the musical closes with the showstopper “Wind Beneath My Wings,” the one song held over from the movie. “These women are arriving at the best versions of themselves because the other person makes them whole.”

While Beaches is unabashedly sentimental, Barrett says it should not be dismissed as “a puff piece,” particularly at this fraught moment. “What is happening currently in our world is absolutely terrible. But it is not the will of women. And I think art is actually where we go to heal.”

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TDF MEMBERS: At press time, discount tickets were available for Beaches. Go here to browse our latest discounts for dance, theatre and concerts.

Beaches is also frequently available at our TKTS Discount Booths.