How ‘Titanique’ Went From Rat Basement to Broadway Hit

I talked to the delulu geniuses behind my favorite musical comedy on Broadway, "Titanique."

It was a mythical time in New York. A magical one, really.

In the basement of a condemned Gristedes grocery store in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, a musical-comedy masterpiece that seemed to have escaped from a melatonin fever dream shared by three virtuosos of creative lunacy was staged.

The decidedly unglamorous conditions were the damp incubator from which Titanique was almost destined to grow. As water dripped on them from the air conditioning, audiences were the culturati, the tastemakers spreading the gospel of this Céline Dion-inspired masterpiece. They were the word of mouth. Turns out, they had big ones.

A drunken seed of an idea that began among best friends Tye Blue, Marla Mindelle, and Constantine Rousouli 10 years ago has blossomed into a wholly unique, hysterical, ludicrous triumph and a comedy hit. Titanique graduated from that basement and is now on Broadway.

Credit: Evan Zimmerman

Eight times a week, Mindelle’s delulu version of Céline Dion swears to audiences that she was on the Titanic and survived the sinking, so she tells them about the voyage as she remembers. Dion’s version of events is a lot like the movie Titanic, but filtered through her signature kooky-craziness, all while the characters belt the French Canadian diva extraordinaire’s banger power ballads to the theater’s rafters.

After receiving (more) glowing reviews, the show is nominated for the Tony Award for Best Musical. Blue, who also directs, Mindelle, whose Céline is the greatest thing you’ll see on Broadway this season, and Rousouli, who also plays Jack, were all nominated for writing the musical. Mindelle is also nominated for Best Actress.

They also happen to be three of the funniest people in the world—and the guests on a new episode of Obsessed: The Podcast. Watch here.

They may be the toast of Broadway right now (clink!), but the trio still has fond memories of their rodent-infested beginnings.

“We were like, oh, this is great! Finally, we’ll have our dreams come true,” Mindelle says. “Then Gristedes was condemned in the middle of the summer, so all the rats from Gristedes would come down to the basement.”

“Take shits in our makeup,” Rousouli adds.

Credit: Evan Zimmerman

“They had also given them rat poison, so they would poop little fluorescent poops in our makeup,” Mindelle continues. “So we were like, OK, they’re gay rats. They’re crawling around. They’re pooping all over the set. And then I’m singing ‘My Heart Will Go On’ and trash juice is leaking onto my face.”