Marla Mindelle - Bringing “Titaníque” & Céline Dion to Broadway | The Daily Show

0:00 I am so happy you're here.

0:02 Congratulations.

0:03 Four Tony nominations.

0:05 Thank you so much.

0:06 Oh my god.

0:07 Thank you.

0:08 Including best actress.

0:09 Yes.

0:10 Best book.

0:11 Yes.

0:11 Best musical.

0:14 Yes.

0:13 Uh best featured actor, Leon Williams,

0:16 who plays Iceberg

0:18 Iceberg

0:19 Yes.

0:20 Period.

0:19 Oh my god.

0:20 Congrat.

0:21 How are you feeling?

0:21 Are you feeling uh kooky crazy?

0:23 I'm feeling cookie crazy.

0:24 As Selind would say, cookie crazy, girlfriend.

0:27 Uh I'm feel I am feeling cookie crazy.

0:29 We were performing on the Today Show uh when I found out.

0:32 So it was like you're nominated 10 nine eight now sing.

0:36 Yeah, it was uh it was it was incredible.

0:38 So were you were you cry singing?

0:40 No.

0:40 No, I couldn't cry.

0:41 No, I reacted like a zombie.

0:43 Everyone was like congratulations.

0:44 I was like thank you so much because I was like if I if I cry then I can't sing.

0:49 I can't be Seline.

0:50 You that is such a Seline Dion thing to do is to the show must go on.

0:55 No emotion.

0:56 You must sing.

0:56 Oh yeah.

0:57 Absolutely.

0:58 The show is so funny, particularly right now in this moment in time.

1:01 It's something we all need.

1:03 It is just over the top.

1:04 It is an over-the-top fun, hilarious party,

1:08 only it takes place on a sinking ship.

1:10 Totally.

1:10 Totally.

1:11 And somehow it's still joyful.

1:13 So, we did our job.

1:14 It is.

1:14 It's top to bottom joyful.

1:16 For those who haven't seen it, tell us what Titanic is.

1:19 So, Selene Dion believes that she was on the Titanic

1:22 and she uses her eyes and her songs to narrate the story.

1:26 So, she's basically like a French Canadian conspiracy theorist in our musical.

1:29 Not in real life.

1:30 She's the greatest singer in the world, but in our musical,

1:32 she's like, "I was on the sheep girl front." And they're like,

1:34 "Seline, you would be 150 years old." And she's like,

1:36 "No, no, no, go with me." And the story begins there.

1:39 And so, it's just a love letter to her because I'm

1:42 such a huge fan of her and and obviously the movie Titanic.

1:45 And so, we combined the two,

1:47 not thinking that it would become this massive hit that it is now.

1:50 It it it is so I mean, listen, I'm a fan of Seline and Titanic.

1:54 So this this musical is like I you can just tap it right into my veins.

1:58 You can inject it like um but how did all of this start?

2:02 Did you because your Seline is incredible.

2:05 First of all, how do you get into the body of Selene Dion?

2:08 What is your process like?

2:09 Well, I I researched her on like I say that I'm

2:11 in a relationship with her on Instagram because she'd be the first thing

2:14 that I would look at in the morning and the last thing

2:16 before I went to bed and I'd be like Seline, it's me, Seline.

2:19 And I started to pick up I started to pick

2:21 up like she has like such a specific language.

2:23 She does like a lot with the fingers.

2:25 She likes to conduct.

2:26 She She's always in disbelief.

2:27 Oh my god.

2:28 It's good to see you.

2:29 She'll find the camera.

2:30 Oh, hey girlfriend.

2:31 It's me, Sen.

2:32 You know what I mean?

2:32 She does A LITTLE CHEST PUMP.

2:35 OKAY.

2:36 OKAY.

2:36 Here we go.

2:38 Here we go.

2:40 And and now unfortunately it's a second language.

2:43 I can get into it too quickly that it's it scares me.

2:47 So is perfection.

2:48 Did it start with the Seline impression and then you thought,

2:51 I have got to write a musical around this.

2:53 It started with coming up with the idea for the show.

2:55 It started drunk in a bar, lol.

2:57 Where all great ideas happen?

2:59 Yeah.

2:59 Yeah.

2:59 Yeah.

3:00 Thank you.

3:01 Thank you so much.

3:03 Um I was doing dinner theater in Los Angeles.

3:05 I had left Broadway.

3:06 I had done like 10 years of Broadway shows and then I was like,

3:09 I want to be a writer.

3:09 How hard can it be?

3:11 And and God was like, he he see a witch.

3:13 It's going to be really hard.

3:14 And I just I lost everything in LA.

3:16 I lost all my money and I wound up

3:18 working at dinner theater and uh we were doing movie

3:20 to musical parodies like true Beverly Hills and Devil Wars

3:23 Prada and uh Constantine Rousuli the co-author of this one

3:26 of the co-authors was like what if we did

3:28 a Titanic parody with Selene Dion and you'll be Seline

3:30 and I was like absolutely not not because I not

3:35 because I I I just I love her so much.

3:37 I was like I'm going to ruin her.

3:38 I'm going to ruin her.

3:40 And uh I was too scared.

3:42 So I for two years we just didn't we sat on the idea and then TyBlue

3:46 the director one day who also worked at uh

3:48 the dinner theater was like we have to do

3:50 this and so we just started doing it for fun and and 10 years later we went

3:54 from LA to New York to the basement of a Christis where we started the show UCB.

3:59 Yes.

4:00 Which is now demolished.

4:01 I guess we Yeah.

4:02 I guess we ruined it.

4:03 You you quite literally brought down the house.

4:06 We Yeah, we did.

4:06 We blew it up.

4:07 You blew it up.

4:08 We blew it up and then we transferred to the Del

4:10 Roth off Broadway and we ran for three years,

4:12 went all over the world and finally 10 years later we have landed on Broadway.

4:16 So it really has been Thank you so much.

4:20 Thank you.

4:23 Right.

4:23 Right where it belongs.

4:25 You are phenomenal in it.

4:26 The rest of the cast is phenomenal.

4:28 The music is great.

4:30 Tell us who else is in it.

4:31 Uh Deborah Cox.

4:32 Deborah C.

4:33 Yeah.

4:33 Stick of butter falls out when she sings.

4:35 Best voice you've ever heard in your life.

4:36 Jim Parsons, comedy icon Melissa Bera.

4:39 Melissa is just incredible.

4:42 Um, Constantine Rousuli who co-wrote it with me.

4:44 Ty Blue directed it.

4:45 I mean, it is just a cast of starstudded geniuses.

4:49 Frankie Grande.

4:50 Frankie Grande.

4:52 Jinx.

4:51 Oh my god.

4:52 Jinx.

4:54 Yes.

4:53 Um, how can I forget him?

4:54 John Riddle, the voice of an angel.

4:56 I mean, it is just I I feel so blessed

5:00 every single day that not only do have I written something,

5:03 but it's I it's with all of my best friends.

5:05 Do you know what I mean?

5:06 Like coming to work is an absolute joy and I get to be,

5:10 you know, the greatest singer in the world.

5:12 In the world.

5:15 You use all of these modern pop culture references.

5:18 You referenced RuPaul's Drag Race.

5:20 You were even weaving in some topical news stories.

5:23 There were some Spirit Airlines jokes when I saw it over the weekend.

5:26 And then you have like an entire improvised portion of the show.

5:31 How much of the show is improvised?

5:33 And how much do you do you sprinkle in to just keep it fresh?

5:37 We have a whole section of the show that is like kind of fully improvised.

5:41 And that was because we were like again drunk,

5:43 lol, and bad writers in Los Angeles.

5:45 And we couldn't figure out how to transition from scene to scene.

5:48 And Ty and Connie were like, Mara, why don't you just like I don't know, improv.

5:52 And so I started doing that.

5:53 And then it became this thing where people would come back like 10, 12,

5:57 15 times because there's a whole section that's completely different,

6:00 which is very different than a typical Broadway show.

6:02 Yeah.

6:03 Way to know.

6:03 Good marketing.

6:04 Keep them coming.

6:05 Exactly.

6:05 Yeah.

6:06 Spend more money.

6:07 Exactly.

6:07 Yeah.

6:08 Yeah.

6:08 I am so happy that you are here.

6:10 Congratulations for everything.

6:11 You deserve every bit of it.

6:12 Thank you so much.

6:13 Congrats.

6:14 Titan is now playing at the St.

6:16 James Theater through July 12th.

6:18 Tickets are available at titanusical.com.

6:21 Mara Mandel.