Mickey Jo (2:20)
Honestly, you gotta love Titanique for looking at the proverbial sinking ship that is this Broadway season as far as new musicals are concerned and saying, do you know what? Shall we go for it? They really turned to investors and said, in spite of the fact that none of these new musicals are recouping, what do you say to taking chances? I'm actually going to give up because no pun, I could possibly come up with is going to match the one that they are using in their new Broadway marketing push, which is Jack and Rose's story isn't done. It's Dionne. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel or hello to those of you listening to this Broadway news update on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I'm a theatre critic, content creator and pundit here on social media and today we are going to be discussing the breaking theatrical news, at least at the time of filming. I have no idea when you are seeing this because it's a very busy week that Titanique, the Off Broadway cult hit musical that became an international sensation, will not only return to New York, but will be heading to the St James Theatre on Broadway for a limited run this season amongst fairly few other new musicals. Now, I don't make a habit of covering every single show that announces for Broadway, but this one is interesting for a number of reasons because on the one hand, it's a great barometer for where we are right now in the Broadway ecosystem in this very puzzling season that we find ourselves in. But also Titanique has had such a specific voyage, shall we say, to this Broadway opening. It's had a really interesting run and development and it's going to become enduringly, I think beyond this Broadway run, a fascinating case study for other emerging small Off Broadway musicals. Because it started, and I'll tell you the full story, but it started as this west coast conceived dinner theater parody musical that inadvertently became, like I said, an international sensation, an Olivier Award winning multi continent hit and somewhere along the way it became legitimized and attained enough prestige to be able to open on Broadway. We're going to talk through the details of this Broadway run. We're going to talk through some of the possibilities when it comes to casting. We know that co create and original leading lady Marla Mindel is going to reprise her award winning performance as Celine Dion. We're going to talk about how Titanique got to Broadway and also whether or not, in my opinion it is going to be successful once it opens and additionally whether we ought to reframe our idea of success for new musicals perhaps beyond their initial Broadway lifetime. I will explain what I mean, but first I want to know what you think as I am talking through all of this. Share all of your thoughts, your feelings, your own experiences of seeing Titanique from around the world in the comments section down below. Who would you like to see alongside Marla in the cast? Share those manifestations. And if you enjoy listening to my thoughts on this and you want to stay up to date with West End and Broadway Theatre news, make sure to subscribe here on YouTube or follow me on podcast platforms. In the meantime, shall we go for it and talk about Titanique sailing to Broadway, icebergs notwithstanding? So I assume by virtue of the fact that you've clicked on this, that you will have some understanding of what Titanique is. But if you have heard the news and are watching this out of sheer curiosity, I will explain very briefly, because occasionally people from outside of the theatre community bubble will find out about this show. It happened not too long ago with a performance by the current London cast on the TV show Strictly Come Dancing, and there was a lot of anger in the social media response that they had turned this terrible tragedy into a comedy musical. And A there is in fact a musical about the Titanic tragedy. It is called, unsurprisingly, Titanic and B the presence of Jack and Rose and I don't know, Celine Dion ought to alert audiences to the fact that what this is specifically depicting on stage and parodying on stage is of course, the huge 1990s film from James Cameron. Yes, Titanique is not just telling the story of the sinking of the Titanic, it is specifically telling the story from the film. And you have to understand this came from Ty Blue, Constantine Rasooli and Marla Mindel, who were colleagues and friends working on dinner theater shows in Los Angeles, many of which are still available to watch on YouTube. I have watched like 14 different angles on different nights of Mahler performing Wrecking Ball as Emily in an unauthorized dinner theater musical parody of the Devil Wears Prada before the Devil Wears Prada musical actually existed on stage, but they were doing like Devil Wears Prada and True Beverly Hills as these silly parody shows jukebox musical style. And eventually one of them came up with the idea that they would do Titanic next, but with all Celine Dion songs and that Celine herself would appear in the show. What they ended up developing through this idea was that it is bizarrely Celine Dion arriving in the present day at the Titanic Museum and announcing that what is being said isn't how she remembers it all going down. And she then tells the story from her perspective, insisting that she not only sang the song in the movie, but that she was actually on Titanique. And so what we get is her warped recollection of the show of the Jack and Rose love story utilizing the greatest hits from the Celine Dion songbook, the rights to which they were miraculously able to Attain. And what followed were concert presentations, cabaret versions, and eventually an Off Broadway run in the basement of a grist that eventually transferred to the Daryl Roth Theater, a larger Off Broadway space where the show really cemented itself as a downtown cult hit, thanks to a deeply dedicated and deeply homosexual audience. And though it may take something of a sentence to explain the concept, it proved to be a winning enough one to justify international productions. There was intrigue about Titanique, and around the same time it was announced that there would be productions in Canada, of course, big lovers of Celine Dion and who take her, as they should, very, very seriously. So an important hurdle for the show to be able to leap over, but also Australia, who, you know, zany enough in their comedy at the best of times that no surprise that they loved the show down under as well as London's West End. And this is where it gets interesting, I think, because London and the West End, obviously the other theatre capital of the world, and when they announced that they were coming to the uk, it was to a West End theatre, an esteemed West End theatre, the Criterion, and not an off West End space, somewhere like Riverside Studios that might mirror the venue they'd been playing at in New York. Suddenly it was a larger capacity, which is something they'd encountered in those other countries as well, but also this sort of prestige factor. I actually visited the company in rehearsals to do an interview for London Theatre magazine and I spoke to a couple of the original West End cast members, as well as Ty Blue, who is the show's director, and one of the trio of co writers with Mahler and Constantine. And there was a definite enthusiasm as well as potentially a slight nervousness around the idea of taking this silly and queer downtown wacky comedy show and opening it somewhere where it would be eligible for Olivier Awards. But eventually the show's brilliance won out and Titanique walked away with two Olivier Award wins, one for Best Supporting Actor in a musical, for the ever fantastic scene stealing Leighton Williams. But also Best Comedy Show, I think, is the name of the category. We have some weird categories in the Oliviers, but the three of them, as writers, won the Olivier for Titanique, which, I don't know is necessarily something they were expecting when they were first talking about taking it to London. And it's very possible that there had already been something of a conversation about the possibility of the show going to Broadway at that time. But if there hadn't already, you'd have to assume that standing on stage at the Royal Albert hall, at London's biggest annual Theatre Awards holding these statues of Sir Laurence Olivier must have put the thought into their minds of like, maybe this can be a big commercial thing and win the legitimate awards. Now, in my brief description of it, I probably made the show sound very silly. I've spoken extensively in my review from the beginning of this year when I saw it in London about why it works so well. I've had the chance to see it off Broadway, also a non replica production in Chicago. We'll come back to that later. And not only does it combine brilliant vocal performances of great songs with hysterically funny pop culture references, but I think what it taps into, and this is a big part of why it works so well, is this kind of hazy, half nostalgic recollection we might all have for the film, as if someone has been asked to write down the entire plot of Titanic in explicit, frame by frame detail. But the last time they watched it was five years ago with half a bottle of wine. And also, I think watching the show gives you that same feeling of watching a film that you love, or maybe love to hate, with a best friend drinking a couple glasses of wine on a Friday night and pausing it and rewinding and making fun of it the entire time. That's what it's watching Titanique. And it's poking fun, but there's also a real love in it as well. And it doesn't hurt that Titanic is one of those films that we've all talked about in various ways for years. Like there's memes that have emerged from it, the whole like, paint me like one of your French girls thing. But also like, was there space on the door? Could she have moved over? The show plays into all of that brilliantly. Like I said. If you want to hear more about why it's so funny, go and check out my review. In the meantime, let's talk about when it's going to be on Broadway. So I'm reading from the news article in Playbill, as reported by Logan Colwell Block. Titanique will sail onto Broadway in 2026. The Celine Dion jukebox musical parody of the epic film comes to the main stem after a cult hit run off Broadway. Main stem? Is that a nautical reference? It probably is. I've been on four cruise ships. I still, I still don't know what that means. Here we go. Off Broadway cult favorite Titanique will get a Broadway transfer next year with a 16 week limited engagement at the St. James Theatre beginning 26th, 2026. Titanique going to Broadway. I could just about fathom my stagey fiance Erin James and I actually debated about this years ago, I think the first time we saw it. And he really wanted it to go to Broadway so that it could have the chance to be eligible for Tony Awards because off Broadway shows aren't, even though you have things like the drama desks and the Lucille Lortels that specifically recognize either both or just off Broadway theatre. And I said I didn't know that it would work and that it wouldn't necessarily have that same sort cult, underground, countercultural queer vibe if it became a little more mainstream. But even then, if you had told me that it was going to of all houses, the St. James, which is one of the most sought after musical houses, the Queen of Versailles just closed there prematurely, opening it up to new tenants in the spring for the current Broadway season. Prior to that, it was the home of Sunset Boulevard and in previous years the likes of like Frozen at the St. James. Anyhow, previews are going to begin on March 26 with an opening night of April 12, in the middle of what is usually a month of many, many openings, although fewer of them this year. Additional casting by the Telsey Office's Rachel Hoffman is to be announced. We're all counting on you, Rachel. Gays around the world are waiting to see what you come up with, but show co creator and original star Marla Mindel will again star as Celine Dion, which is, to my mind, the most essential casting component of this. Marla had to do it and she's a big part of the story. And when you take a show to Broadway, you got to sell a lot of tickets and you are selling the Celine Dion of it all. You are selling the Titanic of it all. You are selling the campy, kooky, crazy comedy of it all. You are also selling the story of this being a little show that could. This thing has won awards. This thing has already been around the world. Oh, they loved this in Australia. They loved this in Canada. They loved this in London. It won awards in London. She won the Lortel Award. She won the Lucille Lortel Award for playing Celine Dion. She, I think in this season is probably going to get a Tony Award nomination and could win. Looking at the fairly limited field of competition, that isn't to say there aren't other great performances this season. There just aren't nearly as many as there usually are. Last year we were overwhelmed by fantastic leading actresses and so many shows. This year there aren't that many of those powerhouse leading lady performances. There just isn't the material. In any case, to have Mahler do it as the original Celine, but also one of the writers who has brought it all of this way is really important to selling the story of the show. And it's not that easy a role to stunt cast because not only is it hugely demanding vocally, it also takes some degree of being able to give an impression of Celine Dion as well as legit comedy chops and the ability to improvise. There are a couple of segments in the show, my personal favorites, where it gives way to moments of improv comedy which some Celines run a little farther with than others. Nicole Parker had the habit of on occasion creating entire musicals within the musical. Needless to say, I'm very happy that Marla is doing it. Let's get back to the details. So a ticket pre sale for those of you wanting to buy tickets as soon as possible will begin on January 8, 2026 in the New year. How exciting. Maybe your New Year's resolution can be going to see Titanique and you can sign up for that@titanique musical.com that's Titanique spelt T I T A N IQ uemusical.com with general sales following on January 12th. Now we have some description of the show here. A book by Mindel Ty Blue and Constantine Rasooli, a soundtrack of songs made famous by Celine Dion. Titanique sends up the epic 1997 film about the ill fated ocean liner with Dion herself leading a tour at the Titanque Museum. I've told you all of this already, but here are the dates to go with what I told you. The musical began as a one night only concert in Los Angeles in 2017, coming to New York's Green Room 42 the following year before becoming a fully staged off Broadway musical in 2022. Originally intended to be a limited run, the production became a surprise smash hit, transferring to the Daryl Roth Theater for a three year run that ended earlier this year. Three years? It was off Broadway at the Daryl Roth. My goodness. Oh, I also neglected to mention Paris, another of the international stagings that happened. But it's worth reflecting on another downtown comedy show that was deeply queer and was initially scheduled as a limited run, oh Mary, which has become this monster hit on Broadway running through all of these sold out replacement cast runs. That might be another of the factors that motivated the powers that be, the writers and the producers behind Titanique, to sort of see that and go, huh? Is it possible in this current climate that's happening right now where a show like that can be that successful that Titanique could also go to Broadway. Of course, Calla Scola was a big part of the story being told of that production. So in the same way Mahler taking Titanique, can they get some of the same excitement? Very different theater, very different timing, very different kind of an audience because O Mary sort of just quite quickly became the hot ticket for people to go and see regardless of whether or not they knew anything about it. And the show that all the celebrities were seeing, if Titanic can achieve anything similar to that, then they're laughing and hopefully so are the audience. Now it is said here it looks like most of the original Off Broadway creative team will reunite for the Broadway bow, including director Ty Blue, choreographer Elnor Scott, music supervisor, arranger and orchestrator Nicholas James Connell, scenic designer Gabriel Heine Evanson and Grace Lauchbacker for Iron Bloom Creative production, costume designer Alejo Vietti, lighting designer Paige Sieber and sound designer Lawrence Schober. New for the Broadway run will be hair and wig Designer Charles G. LaPointe, Eva Price once again producing. And that's all the information that we have there in playbill. The 16 week run of it all is worth paying attention to. But I am curious whether even though it's the same set designer, it might be a slightly expanded version. The joke that they've always used at the end of the show since moving to the Daryl Roth I think has been thank you for coming to see Titanique on the set of Anything Goes. That that's kind of what it looks like. It could perhaps resemble that a little less or resemble it even more. There's no reason that they couldn't use the same set design. I think the original joke there might have been a reference to the fact that was saying like thank you for coming to see it in the basement of a Christides because when I saw the show in Chicago, the joke instead, because it's a non replica production that doesn't really look like anything goes. It's not all sort of like white and blue and and stares in the same way. That joke instead is thank you for coming to see Titanique across the street from the Cheesecake Factory, which is where it is playing. There's nothing you can really do with the St James Theatre because it's one of the biggest and most exciting theaters on Broadway. In other words, they can't make any kind of a self deprecating joke about themselves at point. And that little part of the show's identity is going to have to change. That slightly self deprecating little show that could quality it's all very well when shows like Dead Outlaw, Operation Mincemeat, Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York, move from the smaller spaces and become these plucky little shows catapulted to Broadway. But they have to metamorphosize slightly in the process, which begins to lead us towards a conversation about whether or not I think it's going to be successful to but before I give my thoughts on that, I will say I don't think Celine Dion has ever been to see Titanique or necessarily acknowledged it from what I can remember. And obviously like when Carole King went to go see Beautiful, she had been involved in the process. Same with Dolly Parton and the Dolly musical. But is the Broadway of it all going to finally be the thing that gets Salina to not only admit she is aware of Titanique, but also go and see it? Is she gonna go to the opening night? These are the questions that I think we have to ask. Is Kate Winslet gonna go to the opening night? Much to consider? And once you look at it that way, I think then we can all agree it's worth them going to Broadway. Not only worth it, but essential even. Anyway, let's talk about the potential Broadway success.