‘Sheer Terror’ at TITANIC: Maury Yeston Biography Recounts Tony-Winning Musical’s Rocky Start
According to author Joshua Rosenblum, rumors ‘swirled’ that ‘Titanic’ was ‘living up to its billing: a world-class disaster.’
The Maury Yeston and Peter Stone musical Titanic may have taken home five Tony Awards when it sailed onto Broadway in 1997, but many critics initially thought it was going to be a sinking ship.
In the new book A Very Unusual Way: Maury Yeston and His Singular Path to Broadway and Beyond (out Wednesday, July 1), author Joshua Rosenblum recounts the musical’s rocky road to Broadway, where it opened at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on April 23, 1997.
Ahead of its Broadway bow, Rosenblum wrote, rumors “swirled” that the epic musical — based on the true story of the sinking of the RMS Titanic in April 1912 — was “living up to its billing: a world-class disaster.”
In its preview period, which was reportedly delayed due to technical issues, the show faced numerous challenges, including the titular ship being unable to sink and the musical’s orchestrations being incomplete.
According to Rosenblum, “Kevin Stites, who was music director for the production, says, ‘I hated hearing that, the famous line that they couldn’t get the ship to sink. That’s stupid. But it was a lot of hydraulics, and it broke a lot.”
Victoria Clark, who originated the role of Alice Beane in the Broadway musical, recalled in A Very Unusual Way that when the cast would have to “pause” during a performance, some “people just thought that was hilarious.”
“You would hear people just howling with laughter,” she said. “And we thought it was hilarious too.”
Still, she noted that “very few people would leave” because they “knew they were watching some kind of history.”
At the time, Matthew Sklar — who composed the scores of Broadway’s The Prom, Elf and The Wedding Singer — was the associate conductor on Titanic and played in the pit.
Though Sklar recalled in A Very Unusual Way that the production had the “most glorious sitzprobe ever” when the cast rehearsed with the orchestra for the first time, Rosenblum wrote that “only about 60 percent of the show was orchestrated at that point.”
Titanic was very much a work in progress before its official opening night.
During previews, Rosenblum wrote, a “significant chunk of the score had to be performed in front of paying audiences with piano only.”
“I had to play everything that wasn’t orchestrated, and at that point it was almost half the show,” Sklar said in the book. “Orchestrations would come in almost daily and we’d keep filling them in until we finally had the whole show, which was toward the end of previews, but until then, it was quite stressful.”
Sklar explained that he had a music intern turn pages for him during piano solos. “In one instance, as the music intern was turning the page, he accidentally stepped on the foot pedal that advanced the instrument from one [piano sound] patch to the next, and it went to the celeste sound, which was next in the patch bank,” Rosenblum wrote.
“It was just full panic for about five seconds and then we got it back,” Sklar said. “We don’t have to throw anybody under the bus, but I do remember that moment. It was terrifying. It was sheer terror.”
According to music director Stites, “The metamorphosis of Titanic during the preview process is legendary, or should become legendary.”
The Broadway production of Titanic took home five Tony Awards that year — in every category it was nominated in. It won Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical (Peter Stone), Scenic Design of a Play or Musical (Stewart Laing), Best Original Score (Maury Yeston) and Best Orchestrations (Jonathan Tunick).
Rosenblum’s A Very Unusual Way: Maury Yeston and His Singular Path to Broadway and Beyond — which charts Yeston’s life and career in the theater — is now available in stores and online.
Photo Credit: Jonan Marcus
