On a recent Tuesday night at the Daryl Roth Theater in Union Square, the outside temperature hovered around 30 degrees, but inside a few hundred 30-somethings in sailor hats were drinking “Iceberg” cocktails and grooving to Lizzo’s “Juice.” A shiny heart of silver and blue tinsel hung above the stage like a disco ball.
And then: the woman they were waiting for arrived.
“It’s me, Céline Dion,” said Marla Mindelle, one of the writers and stars of the musical parody “Titanic,” “Titanique.” entry of “Into the Woods” – and sashaying her way to the stage to a tidal wave of applause.
Dressed in tight green sequin dresses, black leather jackets and bright pink glasses, the 270 sold-out crowds had gathered for a special performance commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 1997 blockbuster, featuring hits from Dion’s back catalogue. Since opening in June at Asylum NYC’s 150-seat basement theater in Chelsea, the show has consistently sold out thanks to strong word of mouth and a passionate social media following.
“The movie and Céline are still in the zeitgeist,” says Constantine Rousouli, who plays Jack, Titanique’s romantic male lead, and created the show with Mindelle and Tye Blue, who also directs.
The show has been praised for its campy tone, impromptu moments, and energetic cast, and has cultivated a fan army of “TiStaniques,” some of whom have watched the 100-minute show more than a dozen times.
“It’s filled with so much joy and heart and just stupid fun,” says Ryan Bloomquist, 30, who works in Broadway marketing and has seen the show five times.
The unsinkable Celine Dion
The Canadian superstar has won fans over with her octave-hopping renditions of songs like ‘Because You Loved Me’ and ‘My Heart Will Go On’.
- Rare Disorder Diagnosis: Celine Dion announced she had a neurological condition known as stiff person syndrome, which forced her to cancel and reschedule the dates of her planned 2023 tour.
- The love of Quebec will continue: The extraordinary outburst in Quebec that greeted Dion’s announcement showed how her fandom and ideas of national identity have evolved in her home province.
- A consummate professional: At a concert in Brooklyn in 2020, the pop diva was in complete control of her glorious voice — and the crowd rallied to enjoy it.
- Adored by fans: Dion can count on some of the most loyal supporters in the industry. In return, she gives herself completely to them.
Partly improvised and best enjoyed with a drink in hand, “Titanique,” which retells the story of “Titanic” from Dion’s perspective and through her music, began life as you’d expect: during a drunken argument between Mindelle , 38, (Broadway’s “Sister Act” and “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella”) and Rousouli (“Wicked”, “Hairspray”), 34, at a Los Angeles bar in 2016.
Rousouli and Mindelle, a fellow “Titanic” fan, had become friends over dinner theater and pop parody musicals in Los Angeles. And now Rousouli had an idea: what if they made a “Titanic” parody musical – featuring Dion’s songs – and made the Canadian singer herself a character on the show?
“I was like, ‘She’s just going to tell the show as ‘Joseph,'” he said, referring to the 1968 Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” (It was during this same conversation, he said, that the idea of the garbage bag entrance came to life in the first scene.)
Convinced they were on to something, Mindelle and Rousouli teamed up with Blue, 42, an acquaintance from the Los Angeles dinner theater circuit, to write a script. (The music supervisor Nicholas Connell, 35, did the arrangements and orchestrations.)
“I never thought of myself as a writer,” Rousouli said earlier this month in a lively conversation with Mindelle, Blue and Connell in the theater’s basement bar area. “People ask me now, ‘How was the process?’ And it was like I closed my eyes, and suddenly there was a draft there and I had written this whole musical They wrote the first book in a month and a half, he said.
They began performing pop-up concerts from the show-in-progress at small venues in Los Angeles in 2017 and then in New York the following year. The first performances were bare-bones affairs, with no scenery or costumes and, according to Mindelle, a “really bad” Dion accent in the first readings. But audiences loved them – and many returned for a second or third time.
After a pandemic delay, they opened the first fully staged production of “Titanique” at the Asylum in June. The first month was a little scary, Blue said, with whole rows empty. But by July, thanks to social media buzz, they were sold-out shows. It helped that Frankie Grande, who recently had his final appearance in the dual role of Jack’s friend Luigi and Canadian actor Victor Garber, has a famous half-sister, Ariana, who gave the show a shout-out after attending.
“Social media and word of mouth has just been a wildfire for us,” said Mindelle.
Soon celebrities came to see it, including Garber, who played the shipbuilder Thomas Andrews in the film, and the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.
“He looked at us and said, ‘You guys are totally nuts,'” Rousouli said in a British accent echoing Lloyd Webber. “I said, ‘Cool, thanks, we are.'”
The production’s scrappy spirit was preserved when it moved to the larger Daryl Roth Theater in November, where the show now has a richer sound and about 100 additional seats.
“I was afraid we would lose that sense of intimacy and charm,” said Mindelle. “But we run in the public all the time now; I can still make eye contact with people, I can still touch everyone.”
Part of the appeal, said Ty Hanes, 29, a musical theater actor who has gone 13 times, is that no two performances are the same. He’s looking forward to seeing what Mindelle will do in the five-minute scene between Rose and Jack that she improvises nightly (some of his favorites: a bit about a toenail falling off and a riff about Spam, the canned pork product). ).
“You can tell they love switching things up a little bit every night,” he said.
“Sometimes it really works, and sometimes it doesn’t,” Mindelle said.
“No, that’s right,” said Rousouli. “It always lands.”
Unlike a Broadway musical like “Wicked,” in which the script doesn’t change after the show opens, they update the show weekly — sometimes daily — to keep up with pop culture moments and TikTok trends, Rousouli said. On a recent night, a joke featuring a Patti LuPone cardboard cutout drew loud laughter (“You can’t even be here, this is a union gig!”), and a line originally uttered by Jennifer Coolidge’s character in the finale of Season 2 of the HBO satire “The White Lotus” (“These gays, they’re trying to kill me”), now spoken by Russell Daniels who performs in cross-dressing as Rose’s mother, received a standing ovation midway through the show.
“Every night, people feel like they’re part of something special,” Rousouli said.
One aspect of the show’s popularity that’s been rewarding, if unintentionally, Mindelle said, is how LGBTQ audiences have embraced it. “I never thought we were writing something so inherently strange,” said Mindelle, who, like Rousouli, Blue and Connell, identifies as strange. “It’s just intrinsic to our DNA and our sense of humor.”
Bloomquist, who is gay, said the show resonated with his personal experience. “Everything that comes out of the show’s mouth, you’re like ‘Oh my God, this is just how I talk to my friends,'” he said.
The musical, which announced its fourth renewal last week and is still selling out a large chunk of its performances, will close on May 14, but Mindelle said an even longer run may lie ahead.
“I think the show has the potential to be a lot like the song,” she said. “We hope it continues and continues like this.”
