Page 39 - Lighting & Sound America (December 2019) Magazine

A top design team devises a unified approach to a
musical about the star’s tumultuous life and times

By: David Barbour
Photos: Manuel Harlan
B roadway has seen many pop star bio musicals, at the time for a female performer in her 40s—culminating

but none quite like Tina: The Tina Turner
in a happy and long-lasting marriage to the marketing
Musical, which roared into the Lunt-Fontanne
executive Erwin Bach. Such an eventful life provides the
show with a natural dramatic spine, with the score and
Theatre in November, following successful runs
in Hamburg and London. The show benefits
from a score of Turner’s indelible hits and
Tina, the musical, also made for a tricky staging propo-
Adrienne Warren’s scorching performance in the title role. star providing additional glitter.
sition. Tracking Turner’s progress from Nutbush, Tennessee
But it is also a knottier, more adult proposition than many (where she was born Anna Mae Bullock) to the global
of its predecessors. Among its distinguishing characteris- stage makes for an unusually rangy show that required
tics is a book—by Katori Hall, with Frank Ketelaar and plenty of cunning on the part of the design team, which
Kees Prins—that paints an unvarnished portrait of the title includes Mark Thompson (scenery and costumes), Bruno
character’s marriage to the controlling, physically abusive Poet (lighting), Jeff Sugg (projections), and Nevin Steinberg
Ike Turner; it also doesn’t shy away from portraying Tina as (sound). Working together—they were, by all accounts, an
vain, indecisive, and demanding at times, especially during unusually happy and collaborative crew—they have creat-
her years spent in the show business wilderness. ed a constantly shifting environment for a musical that
But, as practically everyone knows, Tina Turner fought straddles the line between book musical and rock concert.
back, enduring some distinctly thin years before making an The result is a gripping review of Turner’s years of struggle
astonishing return in the early 1980s—a rare achievement and triumph.

Above: The church scene in Nutbush, Tennessee is rendered with typical economy, using only a tree and a handful of chairs.
Opposite: Phil Spector’s recording studio, scene of a key epiphany, requires a more detailed set design.

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • December 2019 • 39