'Burgh Vivant

By Michael Buzzelli

It’s a funeral and you’re invited. Mourners gather to pay their respects to Molly J. Parker (Chelsea Conway) and eulogize her in Sara Baines-Miller’s “Not a Mourning Person.”

This latest Fringe Festival offering from the Thoreau N.M. production has a simple, elevator pitch, “What if you got to go to your own funeral?” The end result is hilarious and traumatic.

When the pastor (Louise Fox) invites the audience to sing “Amazing Grace,” a bizarre “Twilight Zone” time-stop occurs – a scratch the record needle – and Molly appears at her own funeral. The recently-deceased provides running commentary on the eulogies from her fourth-grade teacher Mrs. Flemming (Lisa Germ), her very intoxicated brother, Sean Parker (Stephen Toth) her best friend (Lisa Germ again) and to her fiancé, Charlie (Stephen Toth again) with a few others in between (also Germ and Toth).

Through the course of the show, we learn that Molly has a difficult time waking up for her day job, and the morning/mourning homophone becomes a double entendre.

Then, a mysterious figure (played by Mary Randolph) shows up to collect Molly and take her to the next stop in her journey onward (Heaven and Hell are not specified, but heavily implied).

Conway is superb as the Ghost of Molly J. Parker. Her deadpan delivery refuting the eulogy of her office co-worker Karen (Germ) is magnificent. Later, when her aforementioned fiancé, Charlie (Toth) dutifully marches up to the podium, Conway is devastated, and the result caused many audience members to well up with tears. When Germ returns to the podium for the last time, the floodgates are open and gushing.

Mary Randolph does an amazing job as the Not-So-Grim Reaper. She’s a joy, delivering sarcastic barbs and pointed remarks. She is a down-to-earth angel, who eschews the typical biblical platitudes in favor of plain English. There is a moment when Randolph’s transforms to another character and it’s one of the best moments of the show.

Germ and Toth do remarkable jobs playing a variety of characters, all mourning Molly in their own distinct (perhaps idiosyncratic) ways.

Fox deftly plays the part of the pastor. She has a gentle softness about her. The character knows only kindness, even after an inflammatory tirade delivered by the dearly departed’s baby brother.

Skapura keeps the action frenetic, moving the actors off the stage and out into the audience. While it’s not technically an immersive piece, there are immersive moments (pity the dude who sits in the “Uncle Jeff Seat”).

Playwright Sara Baines-Miller continues to process her grief in new and unique ways. Her new Fringe Festival play, “Not A Mourning Person” takes the Meryl Streep quote, “Take your broken heart and turn it into art,” to a whole new level. During the pre-pandemic days (Fringe Festival 2019), Baines-Miller decimated audiences with “Favorite Colors,” a thoughtful and poignant piece about the death of her best friend. “Not a Mourning Person” covers similar territory in a fresh, new way.

“Not a Mourning Person” had a limited run during the Pittsburgh Fringe Festival, but if a production of this supremely delicate work by Baines-Miller runs again, jump on a chance to mourn with Molly.

-MB

 

 

 

 

 

By Michael Buzzelli

In Illyria we set our scene, only now Illyria is a quaint, new coffee house in the Strip called Soluna, and a motley crew of actors take over the center of the joint in Pittsburgh’s Shakespeare in the Parks (affectionately known as PSiP) “Double Bill,” a work by Shakespeare (mostly) and a work about Shakespeare (sort of).

Side note: While pointing out a pun with a hearty “get it?” is gauche, “Double Bill” is too clever of a pun to let slip by haphazardly: William as a nickname for Bill and bill as a program of entertainment with two main productions or personalities. The program is meant to be a celebration of the Bard’s birthday (the playwright was allegedly born on April 23, 1564).

Double Bill is a Two-In-One special, a Cliff Notes version of William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” set to Margaritaville music and a zany new work by Charles David Richards titled, “Shakespeare: The First Drafts.”

“Twelfth Night” is the Campbell’s Soup condensed version, taking all five acts and smooshing them into one. This shortened version has a Key West vibe. Its both beachy and breezy.

It has excellent performances, most notably from Catherine Baird as Viola/Cesario, Harper York as Olivia, Charles David “Stoney” Richards as Malvolio and Matt Henderson as Maria (pronounced Ma-RYE-ahhh).

It’s a staged reading and the actors are not off-book, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a charming adaptation from director Nick Hrutkay with music by Matt Calvetti.

After the intermission, “Shakespeare: The First Draft” begins. In it, Charles David “Stoney” Richards plays the Bard himself.  It could easily be described as a Mel Brooks piece from “History of the World,” parts one or two, about our the world’s most famous (infamous to  a great deal of school children) playwright.

The remaining players of the troupe sub in for various parts. There’s a delightful gender-swapped Romeo (Jennifer Tober) and Juliet (Matt Henderson) scene that sort of encapsulates one of the other main links between the two shows.

In both shows, the casting is fluid. At the core of “Twelfth Night,” is a 400-year- old story about drag. When she believes her brother is dead, Viola disguises herself to pass for a man in an unknown country because traveling as a woman would be too dangerous. In his notes, Hrutkay mentions the importance of the story especially now. In  her notes, Artistic Director Jennifer Tober delights in playing a variety of Shakespearean roles, including some of the male parts.

In “Shakespeare: The First Drafts,” Richards is captivating as Shakespeare. He lives and breathes the character. While there are probably too many  anachronisms as punchlines in the piece, the show is a delightful romp.

Soluna is hip and funky in all the best ways, a charming cafe with eclectic art filled with bright colors and bold patterns. It’s made even more colorful as each audience member in attendance was gifted with a lei, like Hawaiian tourists, by the PSiP crew.  It was a great way to celebrate William Shakespeare’s birthday.

-MB

“Double Bill” runs until Wednesday, April 24 at Soluna, 1601 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. For more information, click here. 

Nicole Blaine

Laughter is the best medicine served by comedic relief. Studies have shown that laughter and comedy have a positive effect on the mind and can actually boost your mental health.

When you laugh, you release endorphins called dopamine and serotonin.

Dopamine

Neuroscientists consider dopamine or “happy chemicals” the pathway to pleasure. There are many things that can trigger the brain to release dopamine, but laughter is literally the best medicine.

Serotonin

Serotonin is a chemical the brain produces that helps reduce depression. When someone has depression, it’s because of a chemical imbalance. The brain isn’t producing enough endorphins, like serotonin.

The fundamental difference between dopamine and serotonin is what each chemical regulates. Dopamine is a chemical the brain produces that makes us “feel good” whereas serotonin reduces depression.

How Comedy Shows Can Boost Mental Health

The release of endorphins has a positive effect on your mental health. It’s without saying that laughter and comedy have many mental health benefits. This is where the importance of comedy shows comes into play.

The ways laughter from comedy shows can boost mental health and improve your life are:

Stress Relief

Laughter reduces stress. When work or other responsibilities triggers stress and something makes you laugh, it’s as if the stress evaporates.

Pain Tolerance

According to a neuroscience study, laughing releases endorphins that make you happy. When those endorphins trigger feelings of happiness, people can endure 10 to 15 percent more pain.

 Social Bonding

Laughter is a source of bonding used all over the world. When you laugh with friends, family members, co-workers, or just about anyone else, you create a social bond between you and that person or people.

Think about the last time you watched a stand-up comedian or some kind of comedy show with someone. Do you remember the fun you had with the other person and the joy you shared? That’s a form of social bonding.

Organ Stimulation

Not only do laughter and comedy shows increase your mental health, they have positive effects on your internal health. When you laugh, you’re taking deeper, oxygen-rich breaths, filling your lungs with clean air.

Laughter stimulates your organs, like your lungs, heart, and muscles.

Ever laugh so hard your stomach hurts? You’re actually working out the muscles in your abdomen. So technically, you’re getting a small workout when you laugh hysterically.

Eases Tension

Laughter stimulates circulation and blood flow. The extra circulation of blood flow is beneficial to your muscles.

In a way, laughter melts away the tension in your neck, shoulders, and other muscles that may be tight.

Long-Term Health Benefits

Other than the positive effects comedy and laughter have on your mental health, the two combined have long-term health benefits, such as;

• • • Improved immune system
    • Improved mood and mental health
    • Relieve pain
    • Soothe tension

Laughter is essential for your mental health. Engage in anything that can make you laugh. Laughing for at least 10 minutes a day can have significant health benefits.

-NB

Find out more about new contributor Nicole Blaine right here. 

By Michael Buzzelli

When their father dies, the Dashwood sisters, Elinor (Sadie Pillion-Gardner), Marianne (Katerina Damm) and Margaret (Morgan Kivlan) are left destitute.  Their half-brother, John (Charlie Kennedy), who inherits their home, wants to reward them with a stipend, but his greedy wife Fanny (Bella Bilandzija) talks him out of it. Now, as in all Jane Austen novels, the heroines must secure their fates by marrying well in “Sense and Sensibility.”

As in Austen’s fashion, the story is festooned with love triangles. Heck, you need a degree in Geometry to untangle these triangles!

Elinor is smitten with Edward Ferrars (Adam Koda), but he is secretly engaged to Lucy Steele (Bilandzija in a dual role).  While Colonel Brandon (a dashing Desmon Jackson) is in love with Marianne. Unfortunately, she has the hots for John Willoughby (Sophie Hosna), and she’s about to get burned.

The triangles keep tangling in the nearly three-hour production, but for those in doubt need not worry about the fate of the comely Dashwood sisters.

There is hushed talk filled with innuendo about some possible sexual impropriety and a wayward kiss or two, but,  for the most part, the show is kid-friendly.

Kate Hamill’s adaptation of the book takes a lot of liberties with Austen’s source material. The exposition is parsed out by a group of Gossips, the large cast playing various roles.  Some of  the actors are, at times, dogs, horses, creaky carriage wheels and yappy apple trees. At one point, there is a quintet of blathering picture frames that could easily hang at Hogwarts.

Things get very confusing when Fanny and Lucy meet, because Bilandzija is playing both roles. She rushes across the stage, using the hat/no hat trick seen mostly in one-woman shows to portray both characters.

Even though things get silly, the sisters are playing it straight.

Pillion-Gardner dazzles as the elder sister, Elinor. She moves gracefully through each scene. She is a captivating lead.

Damm is delightful. Marianne can be a melodramatic mess compared to her stoic sister, but Damm gives a measured performance, never too showy even when mourning the end of her misguided love affair.

Kudos to Sophie Hosna, blissfully schizophrenic in her dual roles as the dashing John Willoughby and the featherbrained Anne Steele.

Shout-out to Kennedy who plays the dithering but well-meaning John Dashwood, a malicious gossip and a show horse.  He trots about in sparkly gold sneakers with – literally and figuratively – unbridled enthusiasm.

There’s a big time Bridgerton vibe to the entire production. The scene transitions are filled with modern music and movement. Near the middle of the second act, Marianne runs in the rain and it looks like the Stanislavsky movement method set in slow motion. Madeline Macek’s costumes mimic the Bridgerton palette. The cast is bedecked in bright  attire, bursting with glorious Easter egg colors,  fuschia, lemon and lavender.

One small quibble: There seems to be a lot of unnecessary furniture moving. Props are plopped down and picked up at an astonishing pace. Leave the settee on the set.

Director Jenny Lester (in 2014, Lester was on the other side of Point Park’s stage, as the Widow Quinn in “Playboy of the Western World”) lets her actors off the leash. The actors get to really play in this play. The results are madcap and joyous.

Additional Side note: Opening night had the most enthusiastic audience this reviewer ever witnessed, with tremendous audible gasps at every plot twist like a 90s sitcom.

There is a lot of nonsense in “Sense and Sensibility,” and it’s not always easy to follow the plot, but there is sheer joy in the production.  While Hamill’s adaptation is, at times, ludicrous, this show is held together by talented actors, sumptuous costumes and deft direction.

– MB

“Sense and Sensibility” runs from April 12 – 16, 2023 In the Pittsburgh Playhouse, 350 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. For more information, click here.

By Michael Buzzelli

Pippa Peterson (Molly Twigg) of Pluto, Pennsylvania (say that five times fast), is the only eyewitness when a cow is beamed aboard an alien spacecraft in “Abduction,” a musical comedy about some very spacey space invaders.

Pippa goes on a quest to save the town from the alien intruders. Soon, she’s surrounded by unlikely allies; her best friend and chronic people-pleaser, Teddy (Cade Teribery), her one-hit-wonder mom, Lydia (Jamiya Forna), formerly of “Phat Booty” fame, her new love interest, Quinn(Nandita Mahesh) and the jingoistic Mayor O’Neill (Hayden Bobbyn), who can’t get through a sentence with out “Praising the Lord.”

The moronic mayor and the misfits have to face off against the big boss, Ziggy (Emma Schuszler) and her horde of extras to save the Pennsylvanian Plutonians from being the punchline of an SNL sketch version of the Twilight Zone episode, “To Serve Man.”

When Pippa is knocked unconscious after being transported onto the alien spaceship at the top of act two, she delves into a delightful dream sequence, replete with veritable smorgasbord of lesbian icons, including Megan Rapinoe, Scooby Doo’s Velma and the X-Files Agent Scully. They trot out in a scene that could rival the West Hollywood Halloween parade.

Twigg is a fascinating lead. She is a joy to watch as she stumbles around trying to save the townspeople and discover her inner truths.

Mahesh seems to juxtapose her enthusiasm in all the right ways. Her Quinn is a sullen, sarcastic Goth chick with a big heart hiding under her basic black.

Teribery’s Teddy is the comic relief with his own layering. The actor does a outstanding job. He plays it big and broad, but knows when to underplay the darker, moodier bits of dialogue, such as when he is trying to calculate unbelievable odds and lands the line, “There’s a better chance of me having dinner with my father.”

Winner of the “There are no small parts Category” is Lauren Taylor (Zoey and Sally Ride). She’s a terrific dancer, and has big stage presence.

Another winner is costume designer Maya Jones for nailing the “corny” puns with a collection of Corn-Fest t-shirts and the magnificent dream sequence characters. The Velma looked like she stepped out of the cartoon.

The production is deftly directed by one of the show’s creators, Becki Toth. Toth, who is a true talent on stage, is equally comfortable behind the scenes. She gets some star performances out of a gigantic cast.

The ensemble is immense, and, truth be told, a bit uneven, but don’t let that stop you. Creators T.J. Pieffer, Brad Kemp and Toth put on a silly show filled with clever lines with a deeper meaning underneath.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter,” or in the words oft-attributed to 18th Century, Irish philosopher Edmund Burke, ““The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

On the surface,  “Abduction: A Musical Comedy” is a silly, little musical about aliens, cow mutilations, a corn festival and a high school over-achiever, but under that glossy veneer, it’s a story about the nature of complacency.

If you’ve guessed by now with a mention of lesbianism and some sarcastic dialogue about hiding under a veil of religion, the show is not designed for conservative Republicans (do not save a seat for Mike Pence). But if you’re up for an evening of zany Sci-Fi fun, vote Pippa!

-MB

“Abduction” runs from April  7 – 16 at the Charity Randall Theatre, 4301 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. For more information, click here.

By Michael Buzzelli

At a celebration for the booming success of their business, Voltaire, entrepreneurs George Fast (Sam Turich) and his very-pregnant wife Margarita (Christine Weber) – the great woman behind the great man – realize that time is running out on their venture and, while investors can vote in their favor, nothing is going to change their fate in Jennifer Chang’s “The Devil is a Lie.”

The title is a lie. In Chang’s play, the devil is real. Strike that. The devils are real – she/he/they are legion.

Lucy (lisa Sanaye Dring) prepares for the event by hiring Dogg (LaTrea Rembert) to DJ from a fancy tech booth.  Dogg is stage name. He is really Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr.  (if you know – you know).

Things go south (all the way south) for George and Margarita Fast fast when Lucy reveals her true nature. Chaos ensues. Then, more chaos.

The opulent investor meeting swiftly becomes a nightmarish hellscape.

Before the play begins, investors…i.e. audience members are greeted by a Voltaire employee (House Manager/ Actor, Marsha Mayak) who reminds everyone to scan the QR code to vote in the upcoming proceedings. She is a welcoming and comfortable presence in a show that gets uncomfortable –  especially for George and Margarita Fast – quickly.

Scan that code because there’s a sort of “Choose Your Own Adventure” feature where you get to vote for the character’s fate.

Side note: The play didn’t really need the gimmick, and there was some debate after the show as to whether the voting actually affected the character’s fates, but it was fun to play along.

George Fast is a being of pure pleasure and no self-control, and as every student of Marlowe knows, “He that loves pleasure must for pleasure fall.” Fast is a hedonist, narcissist and smarmy billionaire rolled into one finely-tailored suit, but he falls fast and furiously. Turich plays him with sensual aplomb, a  capitalist pig of the oinkiest degree.

Weber is terrific as the long-suffering wife – who suffers more than she should for her man (and unborn child). There’s a strange section of the play were Weber returns twice – once as Helena (a character the show didn’t really need) and another as a more-surprising twist. Weber gets a chance to spotlight different aspects of her talent in each of the three different roles, and she does it superbly.

But this is Dogg and Lucy show (both of whom are named after Peanuts characters). Dring is excellent as the malalovent manipulator of the events. She struts around on the stage with gravitas and devilish charm. Her character is one of contradictions. Dring not only pulls it off, she shines.

Rembert is another charmer. He gets some of the show’s best laughs. He makes said laughter look effortless, but anyone would tell you that garnering those belly laughs is a difficult job.

Scenic designer Sasha Schwartz reimagines the space – the Tenant Innovation Center of the Frick Building – into an sumptuous playground for the rich investors – replete with neon piping and Voltaire logos hidden around like Easter eggs.

Kudos to the sound designer Howard Patterson who produced noises that sounded like they were ripped straight from the gates of hell.

There’s also some great costume design work from Grzegorz Labuda. Weber’s fake pregnancy looked very real (the distended belly had a button).

Chang has some interesting things to say, but a very many things. The show is, mostly, about fate and free will, but she tackles a plethora of topics – maybe too many. Things get a little confusing.

The Quantum production, with tremendous acting, a beautiful set and pitch-perfect sound and lighting design, is flawless. But is it good? That’s for the audience to decide.

-MB

“The Devil is a Lie” runs from April 7 to April 30 at the Tenant Innovation Center,  Frick Building, 437 Grant Street, Downtown Pittsburgh. For more information, click here.

by Claire DeMarco

Small town Popcorn Falls starts to decline when its famous water fall goes dry. It faces bankruptcy and the neighboring town plans to build a sewage treatment plant there.

Note:  Holy Crap!  Will the town’s name be changed to Popcorn Fall-less?

Doom and gloom.  What to do?

Only one possible solution exists in an attempt to save the town. An arts grant is available that if executed could provide the town with the money needed to pay its debts and stop the sewage treatment plant’s construction.

There is one major problem – actually two!  The town of Popcorn Falls must create a play and present it in a theater within one week and no one has a clue on how to do that. And there is no theater!

Actor 1 (Patrick Brannan) and Actor 2 (Kauleen Cloutier) play a combination of 20 characters who are all involved in various aspects of saving Popcorn Falls.  Distinguishing the various characters is often accomplished through the use of small adjustments by each actor.  A flannel shirt tied around the waist is an apron. A sweater cradled in one’s arms becomes a cat.

Actor 1 is the new Mayor Trundle, leading the charge to write “the play” and help save the town.  He also briefly plays a pompous German immigrant.

Actor 2 plays most of the roles from Joe the Janitor whose wife is expecting their 3^rd set of twins to gentle Becky, local bartender/waitress.

The town holds auditions for a play that hasn’t even been written but the townspeople carry on.

Cloutier is amazing!  As Actor 2 she plays both male and female parts, changing her cadence, mannerisms, vocal deliveries and physical movements easily.  She transforms from a deep-voiced male into a silly, self-absorbed young girl auditioning for a part in “the play” into the town’s librarian with ease, adjusting each unique accent and delivery seamlessly.

Although Brannan has fewer roles, Mayor Trundle is the dominant one.  He develops Trundle from a new mayor who’s come to town with some trepidation and becomes the leader intent on trying to save Popcorn Falls.  He shows a gentle side in his interaction with Becky in what is one of the more serious conversations in the play.

The set is minimal with several chairs and a small box-like table that serves as a desk or a bar front.  A green chalkboard is updated during the performance by the actors to indicate where the action takes place.

The plot for “Popcorn Falls” is far-fetched and unrealistic but it’s supposed to be.  It is a silly, funny and laugh-filled production that spotlights two very talented actors.

Excellent direction by Dana Hardy.

-CED

“Popcorn Falls” is a production of Little Lake Theatre Company.  It runs from April 6 through April 16. For more information, click here.

 

By Michael Buzzelli

When suspicion falls on a group of women freely dancing in the woods, in the Puritanical town of Salem, the girls redirect their mischief and turn it into chaos in Arthur Miller’s iconic play, “The Crucible.”

Miller wrote “The Crucible” as a parable to his experience in the McCarthy era Red Scare, when he was asked to name members of the Communist Party, and, sadly, there are some parallels in modern society. In an uncanny and frightening side note: On opening night, Tennessee republicans accused and expelled two of three democratic representatives for speaking up in public about gun violence instead of listening to their disgruntled constituents.

In the play, Abigail Williams (Jackie Mishol) becomes the ringleader of the girls who foment hysteria throughout the town, accusing their neighbors of witchcraft (a sin punishable by death in Ye Olde Salem Towne).  Once she realizes she can get away with her falsehoods, she goes after Elizabeth Proctor (Tamara Siegert), wife of John Proctor (Brett Santry Sullivan) for personal reasons. Abigail feigns possession to carry out revenge on her, because she covets Elizabeth’s husband.  The elder Proctor had a secret affair with his former maid and Elizabeth cast Abigail out of their household when she found out.

In one of the most humorous moments of the play, Reverend Hale (a gender-swapped Brooke Echnat) asks John to recite the Ten Commandments and he can only remember nine, conveniently forgetting “Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery.”

John convinces Mary Warren (Maddie Kocur)  into confessing to taking part in Abigai’s conspiratorial scheme to save the life of his wife, and Hale begins to see through the Deception. Unfortunately,  the Judge (Isaac Miller) has let things gone on too far – and it’s resulted in many deaths in the community – he refuses to believe he’s been duped. John is sent to the gallows in place of his wife. If he confesses to consorting with the Devil, he will be saved, but he, and Rebecca Nurse (Apryl  L. Peroney) can’t confess to crimes they did not commit.

Director Renee Rabenold makes great use of the setting, North Park’s Parish Hill Barn, to create an immersive experience. Before the play begins, the women frolic in the forest surrounding the creaky, old barn.  Its a masterful use of the area.  The audience becomes enveloped by the story as they move around the structure, from scene to scene.

Fair warning: Opening night it was 42 degrees and a section of the play takes place outdoors (though under a covered shelter in case of rain).

The cast elevated the material. While Miller wrote the story in the 50s, the players gave viscerally charged performances.

Mishol was hypnotic as Abigail. While the character is a villainous harlot who condemns her fellow villagers, Mishol finds a sympathetic core – a young woman scorned by her former lover, who suddenly finds power in her voice – even if she uses it in an diabolical manner.

Sullivan Santry brought a hefty gravitas to John Proctor, effortlessly spitting out swaths of difficult dialogue, seamlessly.

Siegert plays the much-put-upon spouse with aplomb. Her character has to agonize over moral decisions.

There were fantastic performances by the entire cast.

Dylan Marquis Myers as a vile and hypocritical preacher, Reverend Parris, and Miller as the pompous and preening judge who will not stop citizens from dying because it would make him look foolish. Michael McBurney’s Giles Corey gives an impassioned speech to save the life of his unseen wife. The actor’s eyes water when he realizes he is losing her to the whims of an insane court proceeding.

Many theater critics have seen multiple iterations of this timeless  (and unfortunately timely) tale, but this version of “The Crucible” stands out as one of the best, telling the tale in an exciting and fresh manner.

The entire Vigilance Theater Group should be commended for bringing “The Crucible” back to life at yet-another critical juncture in our democracy.

-MB

 

“The Crucible” runs from April 6 to April 16 in and around Parish Hill Barn in North Park. For more information, click Here.

 

By Michael Buzzelli

Anyone who has seen the 1993 movie, “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” or read the 1986 autobiography, “I, Tina,” knows that the relationship between Tina Turner (Ari Groover) and Ike Turner (Garrett Turner) was tumultuous.  “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” is an energetic, Cliff Notes version of the Queen of Rock & Roll’s triumphant rise to fame after her famous divorce written by Katori Hall (creator of TV’s “P-Valley) with Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins.

The story starts at a massive concert venue in Brazil. Right before Tina takes to the stage, the self-proclaimed Baptist-Buddhist chants “nam-myōhō-renge-kyō.”

Flashback to young Anna-Mae Bullock (an amazing Ayvah Johnson) taking the lead in the church choir back in Nutbush, Tennessee. Her mellifluous-albeit- loud voice is  an embarrassment to her mother, Zelma (Rox White). Things between mother and daughter don’t improve. Zelma skips out on her husband (Kristopher Stanley Ward).  Then, her dad leaves. Anna-Mae moves in with her grandmother (Ann Nesby).

At sixteen, she was sent to St. Louis to live with her mom. Once there, Anna-Mae meets Ike and rechristens her Tina Turner (in a proprietary way – not yet in a legal way).

Things get rocky pretty fast, but the Ike and Tina Turner Revue keeps rolling (rolling) along on tour.  Until she can’t take the abuse anymore and flees with .36 cents in her pocket.

In her forties, Tina Turner has to reinvent herself once more. With the help of Roger Davies (Zachary Fereier-Harrison) she does just that, and the rest, as they say, is history…or, in this case, herstory.

Groover isn’t Tina Turner, but she is setting her own star into the firmament. She rocks out with vivacious charm. Part of the gig is imitating a world-renown celebrity and its an intimidating gig. If you can separate yourself from the True Tina and take Groover for her own unique talent, you’ll have more fun.

Note: Lonnie the Theater Lady claims that the original Broadway cast was better, and that Adrienne Warren was Tina 2.0, looking and sounding like the iconic pop star.

We may not need another hero, but Groover is the hero(ine) of the national tour, moving and grooving for almost the entire 2 hours and forty-seven minute run of the musical.  She is phenomenal.

Garrett Turner (not to be confused with any of the original family members) plays a villainous Ike. Yes, there’s some nuance, but this is from Tina’s POV and not his. The Real Life Ike wrote a rebuttal to Tina Turner’s autobiography, “I, Tina,” in an autobiography titled, “Taking Back My Name.”

Zelma also gets very few nuance, but she is played with panache by White.

There’s a terrific cameo by Geoffrey Kidwell playing the notorious record producer Phil Spector.

For some reason, jokes in musicals are big and broad. Often,  the writers tend to pander to the lowest common denominator. Freier-Harrison is delightful as Roger Davies. He is able to transcend some of the cornier lines he has to utter with wit and charm.  When Davies meets Tina Turner for the first time, his reaction is joyous, continually telling her, “You’re Tina Turner!” As if she didn’t know.

“Tina – the Tina Turner Musical” is filled with pomp and circumstance. It revels in being over-the-top. Bruno Poet’s lighting design is flashy and exuberant. Jeff Sugg’s projection design adds additional layers to the show. In a powerful scene, Tina, on a cold, wet street in London, feels alone in the world. The lighting and projection go above and beyond to tug on your heartstrings, bathing the stage in deep blues and cold grays. The ensemble in dark coats and black umbrellas bustles around her.

The end is bright and beautiful. “Tina – the Tina Turner Musical,” proves, once and for all, that the rock legend is “Simply the Best!”

Additional note: Stay after the curtain call. Much like a real concert, the show continues after the cast clasps hands and bows.

-MB

“Tina” runs from April 4 to April 9 at the Benedum 237 Seventh Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. For more information, click here.