Titanic is the perfect choice for Encores!

Not only because the musical fits Encores!’s “great score, but what about the rest?” raison d’être, but also because the sheer number of bodies Encores! can afford to put on stage doubles as dramaturgy specifically for Titanic.

In the first act, this corporeal grandeur emphasizes Titanic’s focus on overviewing the wide cross-section of lives lived on the boat. All these onstage bodies also underscore the human scale of the superhuman endeavor that the show is about, the amount of lives required to pull off the undertaking.

Which connects to the tragic aspect of these bodies: the vast number of lives ultimately lost at sea, or forever altered by the sinking. We all know how the Titanic’s orchestra went down with the ship, so seeing all those musicians hovering above the stage for the entire duration — as is Encores! tradition — acts as a constant visual reminder of where this story ends, and its mortal toll.

The band and the production play on, quite literally in the shadow of death, making beautiful music out of that death, or in spite of it.