My favourite thing about musicals has to be the sheer breadth of unhinged imagination possessed by the great minds that go, "Wow, there needs to be a musical about this!" One day it's the Gwenyth Paltrow ski collision trial; the next, it'll probably be a dramatization of the rap game's calculated Drake takedown.
Something that has already been made into a musical, though, is the fanciful flight of Céline Dion hijacking a Titanic Museum tour and giving her own take on what James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster Titanic leaves out about the fateful night for Jack and Rose — all while singing the beloved songs from her catalogue, of course.
This is exactly the plot of Titanique, a farcical jukebox musical charting course for a Canadian premiere in Montreal and Toronto later this year, as per CBC News. An early version of the show premiered in Los Angeles seven years ago, but it recently became a hit in New York, drawing rave reviews and big crowds when off-Broadway theatres re-opened in 2022.
Marla Mindelle co-wrote the Titanique book and played Dion off-Broadway. Canadian audiences will see Quebeçois dynamo Véronique Claveau star, with the rest of the cast to be revealed at a later date.
The parody musical makes its Canadian debut in Montreal at the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts from October 27 to November 24. Then, it moves to Toronto's CAA Theatre to run from December 5 to January 12, 2025, as part of the off-Mirvish subscription season.
When not busy musically commandeering museum tours, the real Dion is on the cover of this month's issue of Vogue France, where she provided an update on how she's coping with stiff-person syndrome. The superstar's journey with the neurological condition will be subjected to in-depth exploration in Irene Taylor's upcoming I Am: Céline Dion documentary.
