638-.jpg "‘Titanique’ Star Marla Mindelle on the Show’s Improbable Voyage to Broadway")
The 99-year-old St. James Theater in New York has been home to some of the most indelible Broadway productions ever, from Oklahoma! to Hello, Dolly! to Nicole Scherzinger’s blood-spattered turn in Sunset Boulevard last season. But the storied space has never seen anything quite like Titanique, an irreverent and frenetic musical parody of Titanic featuring the music of Céline Dion. And the St. James is only the latest stop in a long voyage that’s going decidedly better than its shipwrecked namesake.
On the show’s opening night, an array of well-wishers came to wish it a blessed maiden journey, Clive Davis, Gina Gershon and Titus Burgess among them. “When I first saw it, I fell in love with it,” said Joey Fatone, one of its many producers, who also pulled aboard his NSYNC bandmate JC Chasez. “They’ve done something here which is all about having a bit of fun,” Chasez added, beaming. Indeed, that sense of fun has spirited the show from its original iterations in Los Angeles and off-Broadway to a recently acclaimed run on London’s West End.
For its much-anticipated Broadway bow, the cast includes original members like Constantine Rousouli (playing a goofy yet handsome Leonardo DiCaprio-inspired Jack), along with new faces like Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons (in drag as a domineering mother) and Deborah Cox, who delivers a bevy of show-stopping ballads. As it loosely follows the love story laid out in the 1997 film, the show skewers everything from Wicked to RuPaul’s Drag Race—and relentlessly pokes fun at everyone from Patti LuPone to Carol Channing—along the way.
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But at the center of Titanique’s delicious universe of lunacy is Marla Mindelle. She not only stars as Dion—giving an utterly zany performance that won her an Obie and a Lucille Lortel Award—but also serves as one of the show’s co-captains, having created and written it alongside Rousouli and Tye Blue, the latter of whom serves as Titanique’s director. The creative team also includes music supervisor Nicholas James Connell, the mastermind behind the show’s orchestrations and arrangements.
Thirty-six hours after opening night, Mindelle was still on a high from what she said was the greatest moment of her life. “I keep describing it as my gay wedding,” she told Vogue. “I haven’t been married yet, but if I had a wedding I’d want it to be like that. I feel we’ve always been the underdogs, so after the debut I just broke down in tears. As silly as the show is, it’s emotional for me.”
