Editor’s Note: The interviews in this story were conducted prior to Tina Turner’s May 24 death.
Tina Turner’s story is a resounding song of perseverance and triumph. From her humble beginnings in rural Tennessee, to suffering years of domestic abuse at the hands of her husband Ike, to establishing herself as a barrier-breaking queen of rock ’n’ roll, Turner truly lived a life.
She appeared on the second-ever cover of Rolling Stone magazine in 1967, one week after it launched with a John Lennon image out front. In 1988, she performed to 180,000 people in Rio De Janeiro, breaking the Guinness World Record for the largest paid concert attendance for a solo artist. And Turner, who died on May 24 at age 83, remains one of the top-selling recording artists in music history, having sold a reported 100-million-plus records during her lifetime.
From June 6-11, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical will celebrate that legacy at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts. The critically acclaimed show, directed by Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia!) and based on a story by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Katori Hall, showcases Turner’s classic material—and much more.
“We get to see more of her personality. We get to see more of her sassiness,” says Naomi Rodgers, who shares the lead role with fellow performer Zurin Villanueva. “She found fire inside of her, and she built that and she rocked it out.”
Rodgers and Villanueva both mention What’s Love Got to Do With It?, the1993 biopic, as their point of entry into the world of Tina Turner. “I love the way that Angela Bassett takes on a role and not so much tries to emulate the person but brings herself into it,” says Rodgers, who previously toured with Frozen: The Musical. “She’s not doing everything Tina, but she’s bringing herself into it and Tina. It’s like a marriage.”
Villanueva, a Brooklyn native whose projects include Broadway productions of The Lion King and Mean Girls, studied YouTube clips of Turner in concert for the role. “I started performing as a dancer, so everything was physical first,” she says. “I like to look at the way somebody moves … and that’s generally my way into the rest of it.”
Both performers, who belt their way through major hits like “Proud Mary,” “River Deep Mountain High” and “Shake a Tail Feather” during the 160-minute musical, say they were also drawn to the role by the challenge it presented for their voices.
“I fell in love with the freeness that I felt in my voice, the ability to be able to go outside of myself and not sound like the perfect musical theater girl,” Rodgers says. “I reached for this role because it brought me back to the church, it brought me back to my roots, it brought me back to who I am as a Black woman.”
Villanueva says one scene in the musical hits especially close to home for her—when Ike attempts to convince Zelma, Tina’s mother, to allow her daughter to sing for his band. “And Zelma’s like, ‘I always thought she sang loud.’ That is exactly what people used to say to me when I was singing,” Villanueva laughs. “It was a whole lot of loud. And he responds with ‘Nah, she sang pretty.’ Having that be the first time someone responded to my voice with pretty or nice was different.”
That singing with reckless abandon helped make Turner an unparalleled talent. It also reflected her personal hardships. Rodgers points to the song “A Fool in Love.” “It has so much pain, and so much of a growl and a grit to it,” she says.
The musical doesn’t shy away from Tina’s toughest times, perhaps because those times ultimately fortified her the most.
“You can just look at her and know: This woman’s powerful,” Villanueva says. “We tend to put her power in a physical representation—the muscles and the voice. But the reality is, she’s powerful in her mind. Her spirit is powerful.”
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical June 6-11, 7:30 p.m.; June 10-11, 2 p.m.; $40-$155. Reynolds Hall, thesmithcenter.com.
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