[music]

Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. Yes, that is My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion, which can only mean one thing, we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of Titanic. This February, the film is being re-released in theaters, so we're going to spend the hour today talking about the lasting cultural impact of Titanic, as well as the new exhibits, showcasing the real history of that fateful voyage. First, the very fake version of what happened. Let's get into the off-Broadway sensation Titanique.

[music]

What is Titanique you ask? I'll let its star and co-writer Constantine Rousouli and a very special guest tell you more about it.

Tye Blue: Hi.

Marla Mendelle: Bonjour.

Constantine Rousouli: Hi, I'm Constantine Rousouli.

Marla Mendelle: Bonjour, everybody. It is me, Celine Dion. Guess what? We're going to sing Saturday Night Live.

Constantine Rousouli: Oh, no, Celine, we're actually promoting our new musical Titanique.

Marla Mendelle: Oh my God, that is a great name.

Constantine Rousouli: Yes, that's about you being on ship that night with Jack and Rose and what really happened through your eyes and songs.

Marla Mendelle: Oh my God. If I can ask you a couple questions, of course.

Constantine Rousouli: Sure.

Marla Mendelle: Number one, does this happen on Saturdays?

Constantine Rousouli: Yes.

Marla Mendelle: Number two, is it live?

Constantine Rousouli: Yes.

Marla Mendelle: Okay, see you. What? Saturday Night Live.

Constantine Rousouli: A Titanic musical.

Marla Mendelle: [unintelligible 00:01:16]

[music]

Alison Stewart: That is Celine Dion. Well actually, it's actor and writer Marla Mendel as Celine Dion. In this version of Titanic, the love story of Jack and Rose's told by Celine herself, who claims she was there for the whole thing. The soundtrack to this musical are classic songs from the Celine Dion Library. Titanique: Une Parodie Musicale was written by Marla Constantine and Director Tye Blue. It's exploded in popularity since premiering at NYC Asylum last summer, attracting larger, and shall we say, more spirited audiences with each performance.

One writer at Vulture said of the show Titanique is so idiotically funny that it brought me to tears and it features some of the best live vocal performances I've heard this side of times Square. Titanique is now playing at the Daryl Roth Theater and has been extended through May 14th. I'm joined by writer and director Tye Blue. Tye's on Zoom. Hi Tye.

Tye Blue: Hi. Thanks for having us.

Alison Stewart: In studio, writer and star Constantine Rousouli. Hi, Constantine.

Constantine Rousouli: Hi. How are you?

Alison Stewart: Writer and Celine herself? Marla Mindelle. Marla.

Marla Mendelle: Hi, how are you?

Alison Stewart: I'm doing great. Constantine, when you first conceive this idea of Titanique as told by Celine Dion full of ridiculousness, what was the plan?

Constantine Rousouli: Honestly, there was no plan. We were all doing dinner theater in LA and we were sitting around the bar one night and we were just throwing in ideas. I just came up with this idea after a couple of martinis. I said, "Hey, Marla, you're going to play Celine, I'll be Jack, and our friend Alex will be Rose." All of a sudden, this idea came to be, and I said, "I think Titanic and Celine Dion, the two worlds merge perfectly together." I went home that night, wrote an outline, and then Tye called and the three of us watched the movie. Then our baby was birthed.

Alison Stewart: I knew there was a bar involved. There had to be a bar involved.

Marla Mendelle: Of course. [laughs]

Constantine Rousouli: Are you kidding me with this insane idea? Absolutely.

Alison Stewart: Marla, had you ever done a Celine Dion impression? Is this when?

Marla Mendelle: No, I've never done one before. I was such a huge fan of her, so my impression was trying to sing like her when I was 13 years old in my bedroom, trying to belt out All By Myself. When Constantine said this over a glass of wine, in my mind, I was like, "This will never happen." I was like, "Oh, this sounds like a great idea." In my mind, I was like, "We could never do this and I could never play her because I'm such a huge fan of her. How could I possibly embody the greatest singer in the world?"

As we started to write it for fun, because we were unemployed actors in Los Angeles, it became more and more serious. Then I started studying her, watching her every interview. I say that I'm in a relationship with her on Instagram because my algorithm is so attuned to her. I watch her upon waking up and before going to bed. Even hearing that clip that you posted, I was like, "Oh, I got to work on my accent."

Alison Stewart: Tye, first, when you all started working on this, when was the moment when you thought, "Okay, this might work?"

Tye Blue: I knew it would work from the moment Connie mentioned it to me two years before we started writing it. I tried to get it produced at the theater that we were doing stuff at, and they were not interested. It just sat in our brains for two years and I just could not stop thinking about it. Then one day, I just had to do it. I just knew it was going to work. I didn't know it was going to be at the level that we're experiencing now, which we're very grateful for. I knew conceptually that it was strong.

Alison Stewart: Connie, why does Celine say she was on the Titanic?

Constantine Rousouli: Why does she, because why not? She's just this joy, she is a bright light in her real life. She is wonderful. She's one of the greatest, of course, performers and people that we'd look up to, but she's kooky and fun and she wears her heart on her sleeve. I think that's why having a narrator of that sort tell this story, especially the essence and the character of Celine as a person, I think it just melded itself to be this wonderful story.

Marla Mendelle: She's just such a great storyteller that you just have to believe everything she says. That's why in our show when she's like, "I was on Titanique," everyone's like, "Okay, Celine." By the end, everyone's on board with her conspiracy theory.

Constantine Rousouli: Yes, it works.

Marla Mendelle: She's the greatest singer in the greatest storyteller in the world. She comes at it with such a place of love that you can't help but fall in love with her and her story in our show.

Alison Stewart: When you were working on performing Celine, because you're not really doing an impersonation, you're performing, you're acting, you're an actor, what mannerisms did you know you had to get down? What vocal ticks did you pick up?

Marla Mendelle: I studied everything of hers. She tells such a story with her hands, there's a lot of chest bumping. She plays orchestra with her fingers and she's got a little smirk on her face and everything is in disbelief. She looks at everybody, "Oh my God, it's good to see you." You just can't help falling in love with her. I try to embody all of that. I go back to videos and I watch her all the time to make sure that I'm really, really embodying her essence because I want this to be, and we want this to be above everything else, a love letter to her because she is the greatest singer in the world.

Alison Stewart: Tye, how did you get the rights to all of these songs because you have all of the Celine Dion songs in this show?

Tye Blue: We didn't have them for a few years. Back in the early days when I was producing it as well, we just did the show in cabaret spaces where we didn't need to clear the songs. We used whatever song we wanted to get the ball rolling. Then when we started becoming a commercial venture and we had to start clearing these songs, some of them were surprisingly easy, like Beauty and the Beast, a breeze, things that we thought would be hard, we did good.

Then there were a couple things that we used to have in the show that when we tried to actually get permission, we lost for various reasons. There have been some minor road bumps in that department, but we have a wonderful woman named Janet Billig Rich, who is the go-to person for clearing songs like this for theatrical endeavors. She's just a dream. She makes miracles happen, frankly.

The ones that we're not able to get from the songwriters, fortunately, the catalog is so theatrical and she sings songs about love and it's a love story. We were able to move a few things around to make it work. We have been very successful in the clearance department for sure. Thank God.

Alison Stewart: We are discussing Titanique. Am I saying the second half correctly?

Marla Mendelle: Titanique.

Tye Blue: Titanique.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: I can't help it. You can't help it when you start saying it. [crosstalk]

Marla Mendelle: You have to say it.

Constantine Rousouli: You have to.

Alison Stewart: Our guests are Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli, and Tye Blue. You're talking about Titanique running at the Daryl Roth Theater extended through May 14th. I want to play a little bit of you performing, Constantine, because it's really important to understand that the singing in this show, I'm going to talk about you like you're not here, is really incredible. I think that's part of why this works. You all have these amazing voices and so many of you have spent time on Broadway. This is a recreation of the iconic scene where Jack and Rose perch on the front of the boat.

[music]

Jack: Take my hand.

Rose: Okay.

Jack: Step up on the ledge.

Rose: All right.

Jack: Close your eyes.

Rose: What?

Jack: Hold on to the railing. Keep your eyes closed. Don't peek.

Rose: I'm scared, Jack.

Jack: Do you trust me?

Rose: Trust you. I barely know you.

Jack: Oh, okay. What's your sign?

Rose: Leo?

Jack: Favorite color?

Rose: Burnt Sienna.

Jack: Cool. Now that we know each other a little better, there's no need to be scared, Rose. Do you trust me?

Rose: I trust you, Jack.

Jack: 6, 7, 8.

Rose: 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

Jack: [singing] Take me back into the arms I love

Need me like you did before

Touch me once again and remember when

There was no one that you wanted more

See me as if you never knew

Alison Stewart: Constantine, as you're singing the song, the laugh is because you put your hand over her face.

Constantine Rousouli: I put my hand over her face, yes.

Alison Stewart: Like, "Hey, it's my song."

Constantine Rousouli: Yes, or like, "Hey, stop speaking while I sing."

Alison Stewart: Pipe down. You play Jack as very naive but also very funny, possibly queer.

Constantine Rousouli: Yes, we don't know what he is. He's a good time. It's like the essence of a young boy, really earnest musical theater kid, just wide-eyed and bushy-tailed and dumb but has so much heart and love. That's how I play him. There's a lot of child within me. I am an Aries, so yes, I am a child of the zodiac sign. I bring a lot of that. He's just a happy-go-lucky kid.

Alison Stewart: Marla, how did you all know, as you were developing it, how far to go in the ridiculousness?

Marla Mindelle: It's so funny because our whole theme was trying to make each other laugh. I think actually one of the things that made this so successful is that we did not, in the beginning, have any producers attached. We didn't know what we were doing. We just wanted to make each other laugh. Everything was a bit on a bit on a bit, and we would shape this show over the course of five years and we would add a joke here, add a joke there.

I think part of the reason that it's so crazy is because we didn't really know what we were doing. We just wanted to try to cackle on stage and we still do that on stage. We look at each other funny. We try to make each other laugh all the time. I think that that transcends when you watch the show and you can see the joy that we are embodying on stage with each other.

Constantine Rousouli: That's the magic. The audience loves to see it. They love to see people crack up on stage. It's like SNL when they see their famous, big movie stars, and they're ruining the scenes by laughing. They feel very special and that they're part of something so special that night. We do that. It's just natural.

Alison Stewart: Tye, why is it important that you have such great voices in this show? Why is that an important ingredient to it?

Tye Blue: For me, I got into this business as a musician first, so the music is always incredibly important to me. I hear everything, and I'm very picky in that way, but we are ambassadors for the Celine Dion brand and for the Celine Dion catalog. I think in order for us to honor her in the way that I want to honor her music and her voice, we have to hire people who can deliver her style and her vocals. Otherwise, it lacks. It's just not elevated enough to live up to her brand, and so it's a very high benchmark for vocal talent that we have.

Alison Stewart: There seems to be an element of improv, Marla, in the show-

Marla Mindelle: There sure is.

Alison Stewart: -when I saw it. Anyway, what do you like about improv? That one there. I won't even do the second part. What do you like about improv?

Marla Mindelle: What I like about improv is that part of the reason that we wrote this is because this was like the anti-musical musical. We had all come from doing the same exact show eight times a week. One time, Connie said to me, "Marla, we don't really know what to do here. Can you just improv it?" What I love about it is that it gives me the opportunity to do something wildly different every single night.

It makes me feel like I'm in a writer's room with myself. I'm pitching jokes. Sometimes it works, sometimes it bombs, but it gives me the opportunity to not do the same exact thing every single night. That's really important because doing a show over and over again, you almost have to be a musical theater robot. This gives the opportunity to break out of that. The audience, I think, loves that so much because people are coming back 6, 7, 14 times. They do not see the same show every single time.

Alison Stewart: I was going to ask what has been an audience response, Constantine, that you have had to hold it together?

Constantine Rousouli: We were talking about this on the train coming over here. It's like a gay football game. It's like the gay NFL. I'm like, "What is happening?" People are screaming at the top of their lungs. I have never experienced something in a theater like this before truly in my life. We've all done Broadway shows, but to see people give us standing ovations after numbers or say lines from the movie with us, it feels like it's becoming a Rocky Horror moment.

Alison Stewart: That's what I thought when I went to see it. I could definitely tell. I went on a Saturday and I was like, "Oh, half of you have been here before.

Marla Mindelle: Oh, yes.

Constantine Rousouli: They come back over and over again and they were like, "I remember the first time I came, Marla did the improv about blah, blah blah. Then tonight was so crazy different."

Marla Mindelle: Let me tell you one of my favorite moments thus far as I did my improv, and then I was walking off stage and people were applauding and I looked in the audience and I was like, "Is that RuPaul?" RuPaul came to our show. The celebrities that have been coming have just been insane. That was a moment to me like, "Oh my God, because he obviously is very heavily featured in our show. That was a moment where I was like, "Oh my God, this has transcended just fun. This is now something that everyone wants to see. Yes, it was crazy.

Alison Stewart: You just did hear her correctly. RuPaul is involved in Titanique just to give you a taste of what you're going to get. There's something about that room, too. I know you've played it all over, but that room is quite intimate. At first, when I saw the whole cast, I'm like, "That's a little stage, and that's a lot of people." Tell me a little bit about how the room helps the show be what it is.

Constantine Rousouli: Tye, do you want to take that?

Tye Blue: [laughs]

Constantine Rousouli: This is his specialty.

Alison Stewart: Tye, hit me.

Tye Blue: The show was written to be something intimate, to be something that is immediate and accessible and not too presentational. We keep mentioning SNL, and I hope that Lorne Michaels comes to the show and takes these two and puts them on his show where they belong. I really do. I think that that would make a lot of sense, but we transitioned from a very tiny comedy club, basically, in a basement [unintelligible 00:15:57] where you were at no point never more than 10 feet away from an actor. It was very special.

When moving to the Daryl Roth, we did have to become a bit more presentational. We were learning things. I'm constantly looking at angles of the seats and the rake of the stage and the pitch and the perspective and scale of things is something that I'm always paying attention to. I've worked really hard to make sure that the scale of the set, the scale of the bodies, and the scale of the room still give the audience that sense of intimacy that we want. It's terrifying because it is a lofty room. It's a big, elegant space. We really had to work hard in staging it for the Daryl Roth. We still brought the audience in to a degree.

Alison Stewart: I do want to play a clip where we can hear this blend of this humor and the singing as well as Marla's excellent Celion Dion interpretation that we've been discussing. Let's play a little bit of this. This is a moment where Cal attempts to seduce his fiance, Rose.

Cal: Rose, ever since I asked for your hand in marriage, you've been side-winding me like a shifty little snake. [laughter] I want to give you something.

Rose: Oh, my God. Is that--?

Cal: A diamond in the shape of a heart. Hell, yes, I got it at Jared's.

Rose: It's beautiful.

Cal: [singing] All that I am

And all that I'll be

Means nothing at all

If you can't be with me

Your most innocent kiss

Or your sweetest caress

Seduces me

I want you to have it, Rose. There's nothing I couldn't give you nor anything I deny you, so don't deny me. We're going to do it tonight. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[laughter]

Marla Mindelle: Rose, went to bed scared, alone, conflicted. Would she have sex with Cal while wearing a necklace from Jared's?

[laughter]

Out of all the diamond stores, Jared is so scary. It goes like Melaine, Zales, and then Jared's. Do you know what I mean? Rose knew she had to follow, not the heart around her neck, but the heart inside of her body, dy, dy, dy, dy.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: One of the most fun things about it is Celine is just always around.

Marla Mindelle: She's just omnipresent.

Alison Stewart: She's just like peaking through portals.

Constantine Rousouli: She comes out of nowhere.

Marla Mindelle: She just transcends reality.

Constantine Rousouli: She's a ghost, basically. She's just everywhere.

Marla Mindelle: She's a fierce ghost.

Alison Stewart: Do we know if Celine Dion is aware of y'all?

Marla Mindelle: She better be. [laughter] We know that many people from her camp have come to see it. Her music manager, David Foster, who wrote all of her iconic songs. Her physician came last week. Her backup dancers, her publicist, her makeup designer. There have been a lot of people in her camp, and every one of them said, "She would love this so much. This is such a wonderful testament to her and her sense of humor and her sensibility."

I hope that if she does come to see it, first of all, no one tell me because I will die. If she does come to see it, I want her to know that this is such a love letter to her. We are such huge fans of hers-

Tye Blue: Huge, thanks.

Marla Mindelle: -and her songs and just her joyous presence that this is an homage to how incredible she is.

Alison Stewart: Tye, what are the hopes and dreams for Titanique?

Tye Blue: Well, just further success is all I can really say. There are irons in the fire to help us keep the show alive in some ways. The biggest gift that we can receive is the reaction that the audience has every night. It's turning into this really communal experience that people feel so seen on stage, and they're able to tap into layers of nostalgia compounded onto each other in a very special way that really allows people to remove all care and all stress from their entire consciousness for a hundred minutes straight. It's addictive I think. If we can just keep giving that gift to people, that is what my heart desires for the show.

Alison Stewart: Titanique is running at the Daryl Roth Theater through May 14th. I have been speaking with Tye Blue, it's co-writer and director, Constantine Rousouli co-writer and he plays Jack as well as Marla Mindelle co-writer and Celine Dion. Would Celine do the forward promote for our next segment about Titanique: Une Parodie Musicale?

Marla Mindelle: Oh my gosh. Eh, coming up, I look at the cultural staying power of the film that's back, Titanique my favorite musical. It's James Cameron's Titanic. Alissa Wilkinson, senior culture reporter and critic at Vox is here to talk about how this film has become such a potent piece of this zeitgeist and why it resonates today. Hey, listeners, you better get ready to call and tell us what this movie means to you. Do not go anywhere. This is All Of It. Hey, shall we go for it? Go France. Goodnight.

 

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