Directed by Anne Kauffman (The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window) and featuring Tony Award winner Bonnie Milligan (Kimberly Akimbo) as passenger Alice Beane, this nearly sung-through show from creators Maury Yeston (Grand Hotel) and Peter Stone (1776) remains a musical theater revelation, painting a heartrending portrait of the individuals whose dreams of America were dashed in the Atlantic.
Operatic in its style, historical inspiration, and ambition, Titanic may have seemed unlikely material for musical drama when Yeston and Stone began work. But by the time the show premiered on Broadway in 1997, cultural fascination with the “ship of dreams” had reached a fever pitch, and Titanic received critical and audience acclaim, as well as five Tony Awards including Best Musical. Pared down to its essence and highlighting the majestic score, our Encores! production meditates on the nature of ambition and the human scale of this epic tragedy, focusing on the class divides both illuminated and transcended by the ship’s inexorable sinking.