Tina Turner The Musical Coming to Overture June 11-16: Having Life Her Way
Above: Shari Washington Rhone
Below: Shari Washington Rhone in costume as G.G., Tina Turner’s grandmother (l) and Zurin Vilklanueva one of two actresses who plays Tina Turner
By Jonathan Gramling
Shari Washington Rhone has been living life her way. Rhone grew up in Milwaukee and realized at an early age what she wanted to do in life.
“My mom took me to see The Nutcracker when I was five-years-old,” Rhone said. “I looked up on the stage with those beautiful dancers. And I said, ‘That’s what I am going to do.’ That basically started my entire path. I never wavered from wanting to be on the stage. I performed growing up as a child. I went to a dance school. I play violin and piano. I did plays with the Brown Deer Recreation Department during the summer. I sang at my church. And eventually I went to Butler University in Indianapolis and got a performing arts degree there. I started out in a dance company there. I moved to Los Angeles and got in another dance company. I’ve been working ever since. I’ve done musicals, choreography, song and dance and anything you can kind of think of. I’ve gone non-stop since I’ve been five-years-old.”
Rhone also had a family life outside of theater.
“When I went to LA, my boyfriend at the time who was my boyfriend for nine years, most of that long distance, was there getting a master’s at USC,” Rhone said. “He was like, ‘Come move to LA. You can work here.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ And now we’ve been married 27 years and have two kids.”
Rhone is currently working as a swing — someone who might be called on to do a number of parts sometimes on a moments notice — as well as an understudy in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. Rhone has been touring in The Tina Turner Musical since July 2022. But that doesn’t mean that family is left behind.
“My husband is amazing,” Rhone said. “We’ve been together for a long time and I still like him. Fortunately for me, my husband is a graphic artist who can work from anywhere. He freelances, so he comes out every 1-2 months and we’ll spend a couple of weeks with me on the road and then go back and hang out with our son. He’s a sophomore in college in LA. My daughter is actually a senior in college in New York. That’s how we stay together.”
Rhone believes in destiny that things were meant to be. And that was true for her joining the Tina Turner cast.
“I sang in a Tina Turner Tribute Band for 20 years before this opportunity came along,” Rhone said. “And then the year before, I had actually been studying acting with Jason Alexander. And the particular techniques that he uses are the same ones that our director, Phyllida Lloyd, used when we started working. I was like, ‘Oh, so this really karma. It was meant to be.’ I did several self-tape auditions. And then I had a final audition where I had to go to New York to audition in person. And then I got cast in the show as a swing and an understudy.”
While Rhone doesn’t play one of the lead roles, nonetheless, she has to be continuously focused on her work.
“As a swing, I cover the six women in the ensemble, including her sister Aileen,” Rhone said. “And as an understudy, I understudy her mother Zelma and her grandmother G.G. I cover eight different roles in the show. I take really good notes. That’s a lot going on in your brain.”
And before each performance, Rhone does a lot of prep work before she sets foot on stage.
“If I am one of the ensemble girls, they do a lot of dancing,” Rhone said. “Especially being a seasoned performer, it’s essential that I do physical warm-up, really get my body in the right space. For me, music is really essential. I have a pre-show playlist that I call Chill-Lax. It’s stuff that isn’t too maudlin in mood, but not too hype. It’s just that sweet spot of really getting me grounded and getting me breathing at a good level where I can get into my characters and perform and find that space I need to be in. And for Zelma, because I have so many lines, I tend to quick pace through my lines through the whole show to make sure everything is fresh. That’s a part that I don’t do as often. I really have to pull it back to the surface every time I’m going to go on just to make sure I’m where I need to be and just thinking about the emotional aspect. That’s another thing that the music helps with. It helps me get my mind in the place where I’m open to travel those roads. She is a character that is counter to my personality.”
The Tina Turner Musical isn’t a rundown of one hit after another. It uses the music to tell the story of Tina Turner’s life.
“The music is amazing,” Rhone said. “And in structuring this show, which Tina was a huge part of, they used her catalog to tell the story as opposed to ‘Here’s the story, now here is a song.’ They really used her catalog to move the story forward as opposed to just doing them in the order of when they came out. With some musicals, the music is kind of secondary and doesn’t really forward the plot. It’s just kind of plopped in there. With her catalog, what they did was look at each of the songs and the lyrics and they put them in a place in the story that made sense. For example, there is a moment where Ike asks her to marry him. And that’s when she sings ‘Better Be Good to Me.’ That song forwards that part of the story. The music is placed where it makes sense to help create the story. And there are some moments when she is supposed to be in concert, so you’ll have a song because they are on the road and are supposed to be performing. There are those moments as well. But a lot of it is used to tie into the story line and what’s happening. You see how much of her personal life is in her music when you see it done in that way.”
The Tina Turner Musical tells Tina Turner’s life story as only her music can.
“It kind of goes through Tina’s journey through her life from when she was a child to when she had her ground-breaking concert in Brazil before 180,000 people,” Rhone said. “The way it is structured is almost like a memory. We start out as a concert in Brazil. And then right before she is getting ready to go on stage, it takes us back to when she was a child. And we go through moments that encapsulate different parts of her life. And it ends at that concert in Brazil where we do what we call the megamix. The show ends with a concert moment. It takes us though the good and bad parts of her life. That’s the whole point. The show really talks about the good, the bad and the ugly and also the perseverance that it took. It talks a little bit about her journey with Buddhism and how that helped her to move forward in a lot of ways and just get through the rough times.”
There’s a reason why Rhone has put up with a grueling road life for almost two years now.
“It’s really an incredible production and one that I am really proud to be a part of,” Rhone said. “You can’t always say that as a performer. Sometimes you get a job that is just a paycheck. And sometimes you get to do something that is really kind of extraordinary. And I feel like that is where Tina falls.”
Rhone wants Madison to show up for the musical when it hits the Overture Center next month.
“Come prepared to have a good time, maybe bring some tissue,” Rhone said with a chuckle. “There may be some tears shed. It’s an experience and you will definitely leave on a high.”
Come see “ Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” and see why Tina Turner’s life was a “River Deep Mountain High.”
