Tina Turner Musical Set to Electrify Midland Center June 20-21st

Of all the formidable female artists occupying that rarefied, electric, and often combative air of popular music, hands down Tina Turner stands in a league all her own.  One of the world’s best-selling artists of all time, Tina Turner won 12 Grammy Awards and her live shows were seen by millions, with more concert tickets sold than any other solo female performer in music history until Madonna and Lady Gaga arrived on the scene.  

This legendary Rock ‘n Roll Queen also taught Mick Jagger most of the things he knows, and could do things with a microphone that even turned the Hell’s Angels into pussycats when she took the stage at Altamont.

For a generation who never experienced her live shows, and a generation that will never forget her, audiences will now have an opportunity to witness the transformative power of this iconic artist as Midland Center for the Arts prepares to electrify the stage for TINA - The Tina Turner Musical, set for performances on Friday & Saturday, June 20 & 21^st at. 7:30 PM, along with a 2:00 PM Saturday matinee.

Featuring her much loved songs and written by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Katori Hall, this highly acclaimed and award-winning production depicts the life of Tina Turner from her humble beginnings in Nutbush, Tennessee and up through her transformation into a Rock ‘n Roll legend.  

Filling the stiletto heels of this iconic superstar is actress Meghan Dawson, who is making her Broadway National Tour debut as Tina. A Louisiana native and proud Bayou girl, other notable roles Meghan has performed include Catherine Parr in Six! (The Musical) and Host 2 in R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

On the road with TINA since February of this year, The REVIEW sat down with Meghan for a fascinating interview about what it’s like tackling the formidable role of an energetic powerhouse who could take it down reeeeal slow, and then play it back rough.

REVIEW: Please tell us a bit about your own background and beginnings. How did you start your career in the theatre and manage to land this incredible role?

Meghan Dawson: Unlike Tina, I didn’t grow up singing in church or have my family knowing I was a singer. In fact, with this role a lot of people are still finding out I can sing. When I was growing up I had these Disney child star daydreams and joined the choir in the 10^th grade. My last couple years in high school I found out I could go to college for music and make it a career, but the college I chose didn’t have a musical theatre program, so I earned an operatic performance degree and am operatically trained. 

While there a choreographer I was working with told me about cruise ships and how viable that could be for building a career, so I moved to New York shortly after that and fortunately have been working ever since. Everything has fallen in line - not in the perfect way, but in the way it was meant to for this to happen.

REVIEW: There is this contemporary genre of Jukebox Musicals like ‘Jersey Boys’ and ‘Mama Mia’ and ‘Rock of Ages’ that have been extremely successful on Broadway, so what do you feel distinguishes ‘Tina’ the most and makes it stand out?

Meghan: One of my favorite stories to tell is how initially, Tina was not interested in doing a musical about her life. She has these incredible show-stopping performances she’s done for decades, and when initially approached she wasn’t interested and didn’t feel a musical about her life needed to happen. Basically, she had written her autobiography, did the movie, so when approached by this team her question was, ‘Why should I do this? What’s going to make it different?

I don’t know what went on in that meeting or how they swung her over, but I definitely think with this musical they raised the bar to the level of the performances she gave. It truly is a musical unlike any other in the sense you’re going to get that heart pounding audio design, the lights, the feel of performing in front of 180,000 people.

It’s a musical for people obsessed with this rock icon and what’s important is that through the whole production, Tina was there to correct any errors found in the script. She would say, “No, I didn’t do this - it needs to be corrected. So when we take to the stage it’s also with the confidence we’re putting on a show that was stamped and approved by the woman herself.

Another cool factor is that we perform with a 5-piece band that isn’t stuck behind the pit, but actually features the band members on stage playing in real life in all the club scenes and even with her large rock stadium shows later on.  The band also do costume changes with us and a lot of them joke, ‘I knew I’d be playing but didn’t know I’d also be acting!’

REVIEW: Tina Turner was such a dynamic and powerful musical force. What’s the biggest challenge for you with playing a role like Tina Turner?

Meghan: I think the biggest challenge is pacing, because it’s a 3-hour show and I do not get any breaks except for my 10-second quick costume changes. For some people one wrong move or one missed line can ruin the whole show, so I can’t let that happen and have to pace myself and trust that the story is holding me together as much as the rest of the cast.

REVIEW: What about the dance side of life? Tina was also an incredible dancer and had moves that were hard to imitate, did you have to do much choreography with this production or are you a naturally gifted dancer?

Meghan: I think I’ve always been able to hold a step. I’m not a trained dancer by any means, but thankfully neither was Tina.  A lot of the production notes she gave had comments like, ‘Make it less polished’, because even though Tina was a tight dancer she was not classically trained. She was just a woman that moved well, but yeah - there is actually a week long dance boot camp that all Tina’s go through that you need to learn before even touching the script.

It’s a physically demanding role for sure. I’ve only been with the show since February, but the tour itself has been running since August of last year and we just celebrated our 200^th performance.  We do eight shows a week, so its quite a schedule.

REVIEW: Is there anything in the narrative of the play that is different from, or wasn’t included in the Oscar award-winning film ‘What’s Love Got to With It?”

Meghan: Because it’s a 3-hour production we’re able to dive a lot deeper into different parts of Tina’s life than the movie did. Plus, because the movie was already out, Tina and her team were able to take more liberties and tell other stories she wanted to highlight different than what has already been told.  She goes deeper into her friendship with her lifelong friend and manager Rhonda, as well as her relationship with her second manager Roger later in her life.

Plus, some people think they are coming to see a play about Ike and Tina and it’s not that at all, because Ike was only part of the first act of her life.  By the time she gets to the second act of her life she’s rebranded herself.

REVIEW: Having dug into her personality, what are the attributes you feel Tina possessed that enabled her to propel her career to the point where she became one of the largest selling solo artists in the history of popular music?

Meghan: I think her biggest trait that I identify with is she fully believed in the gift that she had. She said she never thought of herself s a pretty singer, but felt she had ‘something’. As a black woman coming up in the music industry there is no shortage of people telling you what you can and cannot be and what you can or cannot do, and I think Tina just held tight to what she knew she had and was unshakeable about what she wanted. 

She also wasn’t afraid to collaborate. A lot of people in the industry want to try and make it to the top on their own, but she loved working with the Ikettes and the band and also collaborating wth management to see things from different points of view while still keeping her framework in terms of the goals she wanted to reach.

One of her pivotal collaborations was with producer Phil Spector, who she recorded with when she was only 27 or 28 years-old, which opened the door for her to realize she could do this on her own.  Ike Turner saw that quality in her from the beginning, which I think brought the resentment because Ike felt he could do his best to build this star, but realized she’s going to be a star regardless.

REVIEW: How have audience responses been to the show?

Meghan: Incredible.  I think what makes it that way is because this production doesn’t just draw a musical theatre crowd, but you also have the rock show crowd. With a lot of musical theater you don’t have people clapping until the very end of the production, but we have people clapping after every number and really getting into it.  People love Tina.

TINA - The Tina Turner Musical is happening Friday & Saturday, June 20-21^st at Midland Center for the Arts at 7:30 PM, with a matinee performance on Saturday at 2:00 PM.  Tickets can be obtained by clicking this link.