Two performers step into Tina Turner’s iconic heels.
To be good to the formidable singer, two performers step into her heels
Tina Turner, who died in 2023 at 83, was a one-woman revolution.
After early success with Ike & Tina Turner, she enjoyed one of music’s greatest comebacks and redefined what it meant to be a rock star. Her live shows were the stuff of legend. Anyone who saw her fly above a crowd in a cherry picker and race up and down the arm — in heels and with no visible support —can attest to that.
It’s not surprising, then, that two women take on the role in “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical.” Ari Groover and Parris Lewis alternate as the icon on the current national tour.
“Tina” runs through Sunday
at the Majestic Theatre. Turner herself was involved with the creation of the show.
“The way that my body feels the next morning when I wake up,” Lewis says with a laugh. “Thank God that they saw it because this is a beast of a role to play.”
Groover agrees, calling it “one of the hardest roles to play in musical theater.”
Both women understudied the role on Broadway, where it earned Adrienne Warren a Tony for best actress in a musical.
“Tina” traces young Anna Mae Bullock’s life from Nutbush, Tenn., to St. Louis, where she meets Ike Turner, and then through their growing success and increasingly abusive relationship.
Now known as Tina Turner, she leaves Ike and launches a successful solo career, despite numerous rejections because of her age, race and gender.
The show itself has similar qualities — a piece led by Black women with an appeal beyond the normal theater crowd.
“It’s just a reminder that representation matters. It’s very important to see people who are like us, whether it’s television, movies, music, art, in any capacity,” Groover says. “I don’t want to say it’s necessarily a responsibility, but it’s always something to think about, how we are impacting people who don’t necessarily get the chance to see a Broadway or theatrical show.”
As a jukebox musical, “Tina” is also a unique challenge for its actresses in its music: well-known pop and rock songs as opposed to standard showtunes.
Lewis, who has a background in classical music, had to hone in on the “grit” and physicality of the role.
Groover, who is also a DJ and producer, likens it to a rock concert. She grew up hearing the songs “religiously” throughout her childhood, particularly those from the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.
“I never thought in a million years I would be doing the Tina Turner musical,” Groover says. “Hearing ‘I Want to Take You Higher’ all the time is
funny to me because that’s the song that we played in the house all the time.”
Groover has a succinct description of the moment she becomes Tina Turner.
“We call that catching the Holy Ghost. It gets you when you least expect it,” she says.
It often happens for her during “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)” when “all the lights are on you, and you see your castmates, your friends come behind you and you feel that support.”
When Turner died in May, the touring cast and crew were on a weeklong vacation. Once the returned, things expectedly felt very different.
“There was a somber feeling that was around, but there was also a spirit of reverence that was very present amongst the cast. It was also in the audience, like people were coming to a memorial, but they were participating in a celebratory mood,” Lewis says. Groover nods in agreement.
“It definitely hits a bit harder, but I think it makes the journey even better when we get to the end of the show,” she says. “I will find myself getting caught up in the spirit where I’m just like, ‘This is Tina, Tina’s here right now.’ And I have no choice but to honor that spirit right now.”