On Friday Night, Anna Wintour, Yara Shahidi, Adut Akech, Cindy Bruna, and More Gathered to Fundraise for RAINN

“Tina [Turner] dared to first speak about the domestic abuse she suffered from her husband Ike Turner in 1986 when she published her autobiography,” announced Tali Pelman, producer of TINA: The Tina Turner Musical, to a crowd gathered at the heart of Times Square on Friday evening, in the Edition’s verdant terrace room. “That was 34 years ago,” she emphasized.

Pelman went on to say that it was Tina’s intent, through her music and her courageous honesty, to turn poison into medicine. In that same spirit, the room was filled for a fundraising cocktail for RAINN (the Rape, Abuse Incest National Network), to be followed by a performance of TINA: The Tina Turner Musical at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.

Welcomed by Anna Wintour, guests in attendance included Billy Porter, who gleamed in a metallic-flecked white suit, Broadway darling Jeremy Pope (soon to be seen in Ryan Murphy’s new Netflix series Hollywood), and a spattering of designers: Christian Siriano, Cynthia Rowley, Zac Posen. Also there were CVFF alums like Emily Bode, Aurora James, Jonathan Cohen, Victor Glemaud, and Kerby Jean-Raymond, who clustered together taking photos.

The invitation listed a series of hosts, all powerful women who often lend their names and use their platforms to spotlight the issues that matter to them most. Yara Shahidi, Adut Akech, Janet Mock, and Joan Smalls were among the group, and each addressed the room to help in the fundraising efforts. (In addition to ticket sales for the evening, guests and the general public can partake in the CharityBuzz auction for tickets to TINA, which includes a meet-and-greet with cast members.)

Shahidi, who was briefly in town from Boston, where she moonlights as a full-time Harvard student (she joked about squeezing studying time into a jam-packed New York Fashion Week), spoke on RAINN’s offerings. “Through their national sexual assault hotline, trained, supportive specialists are able to speak to survivors 24/7, 365 days out of the year, offering support and directing them to the appropriate resources,” announced Shahidi.

The Grown-ish actor then passed the microphone to Maxine Outerbridge, a member of RAINN’s Speakers Bureau, who shared her own harrowing experience with domestic abuse with the crowd. Long after she concluded her story, her words seemed to hang in the air, too important to be replaced. One line, in particular, seemed to linger, “Sometimes it’s not just about courage. Sometimes it’s about resources,” said Outerbridge, “I also chose so many times to return back to danger because I wasn’t yet adequately supported, comfortable, or confident in my ability to survive on my own.... That’s why it’s so important that we’re having this conversation and that we’re supporting such an important cause and organization.”