TINA, The Tina Turner Musical
Opening Night: November 7, 2019
Theater: Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
From humble beginnings in Nutbush, Tennessee, to her transformation into the global Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Tina Turner didn’t just break the rules, she rewrote them. This new hit stage musical, presented in association with Tina Turner herself, reveals the untold story of a woman who dared to defy the bounds of her age, gender and race.
BUY TICKETSREAD THE REVIEWS:
November 7, 2019
About 35 minutes into Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, I began to feel very protective toward the title subject. I battled the urge to jump onto the Lunt-Fontanne stage and angrily defend Tina from all the torture and humiliation going on. Call it patriarchal, call it white saviorism, but I found the great singer’s treatment despicable. And I don’t mean the years of physical and emotional abuse Tina suffered at the hands of husband and bandmate Ike Turner. No, the comeback queen of rock and the phenomenal actress playing her—Adrienne Warren—were trapped in a needlessly shoddy, demoralizing dud.
READ THE REVIEW
November 7, 2019
“Now, that’s what I call a Broadway show!” That’s what the stranger sitting next to me at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater yelled into my ear at the roof-raising finale of “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.” I’d say he nailed it. Call “Tina” a jukebox musical or a bio-musical or anything you want to call it, but above all, this is one fine specimen in the best showbiz tradition of the Great Big Broadway Musical. The music is fantastic, the staging is deluxe, the central figure is a cultural icon and the lead performer, Adrienne Warren, is sensational. Under the inspired direction of Phyllida Lloyd, who previously applied her magic touch to “Mamma Mia!”, the show originated in London, also with Warren, its dazzling star, in the lead. A modest standout in the 2016 George Wolfe extravaganza “Shuffle Along,” Warren busts out into full stardom here, doing Tina proud. She has the moves, the wit and the smoldering fire of her idol, along with the voice to capture Tina’s deep hurt and the sheer ferocity of her will to survive a heap of adversity.
READ THE REVIEW
November 7, 2019
Adrienne Warren plays the legendary queen of rock ‘n’ roll across more than three tumultuous decades, from her humble Tennessee roots through her abusive first marriage to her jubilant reinvention in the 1980s. If you aim to embody the indomitable spirit of a beloved subject named not once but twice in the title of her celebratory bio-musical, you better be up to the challenge. Adrienne Warren has what it takes, and then some — the powerhouse voice, the jackhammer legs, the wild dance moves, and above all, the heart — to carry Tina: The Tina Turner Musical across the rough patches of its clunky book and uneven direction. This grit-and-glitter production is neither the best nor the worst (RIP, Donna Summer) of the ongoing wave of musical biographies, but the sensational lead performance that drives pretty much every scene is not to be missed.
READ THE REVIEW
November 7, 2019
There’s a terrific YouTube clip of Janis Joplin, resplendent in a 1969 splash of crimson, purple and gold, trying to explain to a square Dick Cavett why Tina Turner is her favorite singer, “the best chick ever.” The Ike and Tina Turner Revue, Joplin continues, includes Ike “her husband and bandleader.” But, Janis makes clear, “Tina’s the show.” I can’t think of a better description for Tina – The Tina Turner Musical, opening tonight at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. An unsurprising by-the-books book, plenty of one-dimensional side characters – including that husband and bandleader – and the sort of expository dialogue done somewhat better than most jukebox musicals, but not enough. But all is forgiven when the explosive mini-concert arrives, post-narrative. As the set expands up and sideways into a platformed expanse full of red and yellow lights, the full band is revealed and Warren performs an ecstatic song-and-dance, giving Tina the ending that somehow, someway, captures all the excitement, joy and flamboyance of that real-life woman whose name is finally and fittingly in the brightest of lights once more.
READ THE REVIEW
November 7, 2019
Tina Turner gets the bio-jukebox treatment, with all its lows (emaciated storytelling) and one of its peaks (a star-making performance from Adrienne Warren). It’s a good tale, in theory, cut to the pattern of classic drama. Two elemental forces — hurricane-voiced Anna Mae Bullock and typhoon-tempered Ike Turner — are pitted in a struggle that nearly destroys both. But while Ike, for his sins, winds up a pariah and eventually dies of an overdose, Anna, rechristened Tina by her Svengali-like husband, rises from the depths, to greater glory solo than she ever achieved under his boot. More important, as far as pure entertainment is concerned, this story comes with songs that can thrill an audience when rendered as Turner sang them; at this, the musical “Tina,” directed by Phyllida Lloyd, happily succeeds. In a performance that is part possession, part workout and part wig, Adrienne Warren rocks the rafters and dissolves your doubts about anyone daring to step into the diva’s high heels. But what I’ve just described is a rock concert — which is what “Tina” essentially turns into. It’s a blast if that’s what you came for. If you meant to see a true union of song and story, though, you won’t get it here.
READ THE REVIEW