ABOVE PHOTO: THIS IMAGE RELEASED BY BOND THEATRICALS SHOWS NAOMI RODGERS AS TINA TURNER throughout a efficiency of the nationwide tour of Broadway’s “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical.” The manufacturing makes its California debut this week, then continues its multi-year nationwide journey, visiting 37 extra cities throughout North America. There are additionally productions working on London’s West Finish, in addition to in Sydney, Australia and Stuttgart, Germany. (Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman/Bond Theatricals by way of AP)
By Mark Kennedy
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — The nationwide tour of Broadway’s “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical” makes its California debut this week, arriving as a poignant, posthumous celebration following the rock music icon’s demise final month.
“Tina” opens in Los Angeles on the Hollywood Pantages Theatre on Wednesday, steps away from her Hollywood Stroll of Fame star and the place she recorded for Capitol Information. It performs there till July 9, adopted by two weeks at Segerstrom Heart the Arts in Costa Mesa and stops in San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose later this summer season.
“We’ve got at all times wished to place audiences within the room together with her and it’s clearly going to have much more of a particular that means now that she is gone from us bodily,” says Katori Corridor, co-writer of the musical.
“However her vitality, her spirit, clearly has been interwoven into our artistic processes. And I pray that we’ll at all times be capable to give each viewers member a little bit piece of Tina after they come to the present.”
Turner, who survived a horrifying marriage to triumph in center age with such hits as “What’s Love Bought to Do With It” and “Higher Be Good To Me,” died final month in Küsnacht close to Zurich. She was 83.
After California, the tour continues its multi-year nationwide journey, visiting 37 extra cities throughout North America subsequent season. It has been touring recurrently since fall 2022. There are additionally productions working on London’s West Finish, in addition to in Sydney, Australia, and Stuttgart, Germany.
The musical traces the highs and lows of the two-time Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame inductee, together with her hellish marriage scarred by home violence and the rise as a beloved solo artist with songs like “Non-public Dancer,” “River Deep, Mountain Excessive,” “The Finest” and “Proud Mary.”
“Tina” captured 12 Tony nominations, together with an eventual greatest actress profitable trophy for Adrienne Warren within the title position. Corridor wrote the ebook with Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins.
Two actors share the position of Turner on the street — Naomi Rodgers and Zurin Villanueva, every enjoying 4 of the eight performances every week. Additionally co-starring are Roderick Lawrence, Roz White, Carla R. Stewart, and Lael Van Keuren.
Tour organizers realized by seeing Warren as Turner on Broadway that not only one actor may play the demanding position on the street, says Corridor.
“We noticed how arduous it’s on the physique — It’s the physicality, it’s the singing, however it’s additionally simply the emotional heft each night time one has to place upon their shoulders and undergo, two hours plus of the lifetime of Tina Turner.”
Corridor remembers discovering out that Turner had died when she awoke with messages flooding her telephone. Her thoughts went again to the time when Turner attended “Tina” on Broadway.
“When she walked by way of the door, to see folks get on their toes and provides her a standing ovation, I used to be so grateful that she was capable of really feel that vitality and really feel that love on the American facet of the pond earlier than she handed,” says Corridor.
“I believe it was only a stunning reward that we had been capable of give her in that second and to be within the room respiratory together with her and witnessing that love simply showering down from the balcony.”
