Ian Saverin, as Thomas Andrews, holds a replica of the Titanic during a dress rehearsal for the University of Colorado Boulder’s production of “Titanic, The Musical” at Macky Auditorium on Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (Clementine Miller/CU Independent)
CU Presents performs “Titanic, the Musical,” a drama by Maury Yeston and Peter Stone, at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Macky Auditorium from March 15 through 17. Far from the romanticized story of Jack and Rose, this musical showcases the lives and desires of real people from all classes who were really aboard the vessel in 1912.
The ensemble-heavy melodies and real-life characters bring to light throughout the show that the R.M.S. Titanic was indeed a slice of everyday life in the time before the First World War, from its structured class separation to the implementation of new technologies like the telegraph to the upending of social customs as the ‘new world’ chafed against old tradition.
“It is much more of a historically accurate Titanic,” said Marla Schulz, the show’s choreographer and a musical theater lecturer at CU Boulder, at a dress rehearsal Tuesday. “Their storylines were put together by research that was done by the writers. So, they’re really trying to stick more with real people rather than fictional storylines.”
Actors see the Titanic for the first time in a dress rehearsal for the University of Colorado Boulder’s production of “Titanic, The Musical” at Macky Auditorium on Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (Clementine Miller/CU Independent)
The musical’s characters, like their historical counterparts, are strictly separated by class while on the vessel with vastly differing reasons to have boarded the Titanic. The wealthy in first class, the Astors and Guggenheims of the Western world, are idolized, envied or detested by those in lower classes. One woman from second class is so eager to rise above her station that she even takes the ship’s evacuation as an opportunity to mingle with the gilded gentry. The second class, while still disregarded, are living comfortably with established lives back home, and the third class is mainly comprised of Irish, German and Italian immigrants looking to forge better lives in America, “where the streets are paved with gold.” The staff aboard the ship reflects each class in some way, from the esteemed captain and his immediate staff to the lowly ‘stokers’ below deck who shovel coal to fuel the ship.
“It’s a story about the intersection of class,” said Ian Saverin, a musical theater major at CU Boulder who plays Thomas Andrews, the Titanic’s revered architect. “There is no real main character per se. It makes you fall in love with everybody, so ultimately when the ship sinks, you feel this great sense of loss.”
Catherine “Kate” McGowan, a 17-year-old Irish immigrant, was a real-life victim of the tragedy. Her character is played by Ellie Karp, a musical theater major at CU Boulder, and represents the dashed hopes of many people in the third class who were never afforded the opportunity to start over in the New World.
Actors prepare to board the lifeboats during a dress rehearsal for the University of Colorado Boulder’s production of “Titanic, The Musical” at Macky Auditorium on Tuesday, March 12, 2024. (Clementine Miller/CU Independent)
“Putting music to a horrific event like this, it is really a drama,” Karp said. “I think that the music just adds so much to the story that couldn’t be done in a play or in the movie. It adds another layer of emotion.”
“It’s a really beautiful show, we have incredibly talented students in it,” Schulz said. “The singing is amazing, the costumes are beautiful, the dancing is great– it’s a wonderful, big show, and they’re really doing a great job with [it].”
The final showing of “Titanic, the Musical” will run March 17 at 2 p.m.in Macky Auditorium. Tickets range from $17-50. More information can be found here.
Contact CU Independent Arts and Entertainment Editor Grace Ptak at Grace.Ptak@colorado.edu.
