The North American tour of TINA — The Tina Turner Musical is coming to Broadway at the Hobby and Roz White plays Zelma Bullock, Turner’s mother who left her child behind with her grandmother as she moved away to escape an abusive marriage.
The irony is immediately clear in that her daughter went on to enter into an abusive marriage of her own with Ike Turner years later.
“The very first scene is me and her father duking it out and Zelma was not taking that abuse,” White said. “She was just as much a perpetrator as Richard, Tina’s father. But she was not just going to sit still and take it. So it’s a fight from the very first scene. You see Zelma leave with the older daughter.
At that point, Tina’s grandmother becomes her guide. “Tina was able to overcome all that,” White said. “It just teaches us never to give up.”
The show is unusual in that it has two actresses — Naomi Rodgers (Frozen) and Ari Groover (TINA Broadway, Head Over Heels) sharing the title role. Each plays four of eight performances a week. Roderick Lawrence is Ike Turner, Wydetta Carter is Gran Georgeanna and Sarah Bockel is Rhoda. The musical was written by Tony Award nominee and Pulitzer Prize winner Katori Hall with Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins.
Songs in the musical which covers the years from about 1949 to 1985 include the No. 1 hit “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “River Deep – Mountain High,” “Proud Mary” and “We Don’t Need Another Hero.”
“Zelma Bullock was a hard woman,” White said. “She had children in the ’30s when it was difficult for an African American woman to be anything but a server — someone who was in the service of someone else. She wanted a better life than that. She was in an abusive relationship with … Tina’s father and so she chose to take the older daughter Alline and leave Tina and her father for a better life in St. Louis.
“She eventually sent for Tina when she was a young girl of 17,” White said, where Tina met Ike and joined his band. Mother and daughter had difficulty getting along as many mothers and daughters do from time to time, White said, especially since Turner was growing up in a time that expected young girls to “be sitting still in bows and in their place and not jumping and running and jumping onto trees and into creeks. Tina was a daredevil lsince she was a child and a mother like Zelma could not understand it.”
Despite being a difficult woman, her mother was also “a catalyst for her success because she pushed her to prove she could be something other than what she said she could be,” White said.
Usually, White said, she plays “very endearing or loving characters,” so the role of Tina’s mother was a stretch for her but she welcomed the change to show she “had more range than just the sassy friend.”
Turner died this past May in Switzerland where she had become a citizen. White said she grew up with Turner’s music and believes “this is the play she would have wanted.”
“I definitely think that this was the story she wanted told as opposed to the Hollywood version. This gets into her life more and she definitely said she wanted her American fans to know that she loved them and this was her love letter to them. She didn’t get a chance to see the tour. But she would send messages. I really believe this is important because Tina wanted it.
“No one knew that Anna Mae Bullock would become Tina Turner. Only Tina Turner knew that inside herself.”
Performances are scheduled for January 2-7 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday, 1 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Sunday at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-2525or visit thehobbycenter.org or broadwayatthehobbycenter.com. $40-$325.
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This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
