A love letter to ‘Queen Celine’ heading to Sydney

Titanique the musical took New York by storm, wowing hardened critics. Now, it is heading to Australia before anywhere else in the world.

The creatives behind off-Broadway smash hit Titanique are banking on “Queen Celine” one day seeing their show.

A parody of James Cameron’s 1997 Oscar winning film, the jukebox musical places Celine Dion as a central character as herself in the story as one of the passengers on the cruiseliner’s ill-fated voyage.

“I think we’ve navigated that relationship in a healthy, respectful, loving way,” Tye Blue told Confidential. “And one day she will see the show and I will die. I will be deceased upon arrival.”

Canadian singer Celine Dion in 2019. Picture: AFP

Blue came up with the concept with actor mates Constantine Rousouli and Marla Mindelle back in 2017 and it premiered at New York’s Daryl Roth Theatre in 2022.

“Her people have all seen it,” Rousouli said. “We believe she is aware of it, definitely, because no one has come for us yet to shut this down.”

In the New York production, Mindelle was originally Dion, Rousouli was Jack and Carrie St Louis was Rose. Kate Winslet played Rose in the film while Leonardo DiCaprio was Jack.

Titanique will come to Sydney’s The Grand Electric from September, marking its first international offshoot production ahead of London and Canada.

Dion of course took a step away from the public eye after being diagnosed with stiff person syndrome in 2022.

Her team has seen the New York show with Blue and Roussouli hopeful she too one day will have the opportunity.

In no way is the musical making fun of Dion or her music.

“We always say, this is a love letter to her,” Roussouli explained. “We will never talk about her personal life, her kids, we’re not going to take the piss out of her ever. This is truly a lift up homage to how much we are obsessed with her and how much we love her. And the show itself, yes, we’ll take the piss out of the movie and rake the movie over the coals but not queen Celine.”

The off-Broadway cast of Titanique.

The Australian cast is yet to be announced with Blue and Rousouli offering some sage advice to those thinking of auditioning.

Whoever makes the cut must be at the top of their game to take on Dion’s big musical numbers like All By Myself, A New Day Has Come, I Drove All Night and My Heart Will Go On.

“To be the greatest singer in the world, your arse better get on that stage and sing your face off,” Roussouli said. “We are sticklers on that, and we’re sticklers with the comedy too so it is so hard to find incredible people who have comedy chops, but then also can sing down. We really hone into that and we really make sure that those two things are top of the list.”

Titanique is bizarrely, and uniquely, fabulous. It is camp and unashamedly joyful.

“It is a wild, chaotic ride,” Blue said. “A waterfall of joy, gay Fantasia, an unhinged love letter to Celine, SNL (Saturday Night Live) if they could sing.”

Constantine Rousouli as Jack and Carrie St Louis as Rose in Titanique.

Tye Blue and Constantine Rousouli.

Rousouli added: “If you want nostalgia, you are going to get it. You want all the greatest hits that Celine is going to sing, we have them in the show. It is just a good time, I don’t know how else to explain it. It is, what would happen if Celine was on the ship that night? What would happen if she was with Jack and Rose?”

To bring the show to Australia is a huge deal for the creatives.

“It ain’t all roses, we are literally still starving artists,” Blue said. “We genuinely appreciate it.”

Titanique tickets go on sale on Monday, with pre-sale available by signing up at titaniquemusical.com.au. Jonathon Moran flew to New York to interview the creatives behind Titanique as a guest of Michael Cassel Group.