Tina has to be the hottest ticket
PEOPLE are showing some respect for Tina Turner.
Tina, the musical about the iconic singer, has already sold in excess of 100,000 tickets — and the first preview is still nearly two months away.
The show’s initial booking period, through June 16, has now been extended to October 20, with another 100,000 tickets going on sale at noon today. Box office takings are said to be between £4 million and £6 million.
Tali Pelman, the producer for Stage Entertainment, the company which secured Turner’s agreement to do Tina, told me that the show is clearly ‘speaking to people’.
‘You have a woman who, against the odds, rose up and it’s tapping into the #MeToo conversation,’ she told me.
And, of course, there are all those classic songs: from Proud Mary to River Deep Mountain High.
Director Phyllida Lloyd is in rehearsals with her company, which features Adrienne Warren as Tina and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith as her first husband, the bullying Ike Turner.
Playwright Katori Hall wrote the show’s book after meeting with Turner at her home in Switzerland and visiting Nutbush, Tennessee, where Turner spent her hardscrabble childhood.
Ms Turner will be dropping in on rehearsals and previews, which start at the Aldwych on March 21.