Titanic OBC vs. Script

[BroadwayBound062]

Posted: 10/17/11 at 4:15pm

I am in a production of Titanic this spring and I was listening to the songs as they came in my script and noticed on the OBC Still comes before To Be A Captain Reprise and that What A Remarkable Age this is comes in a different place on the cd than in the script. When were these changes made?

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 10/17/11 at 4:26pm

From reading the book, I'm pretty sure that it was never like that in the actual show. It's only in that order on the CD.

In the book they talk about how, during previews, they needed to fill a six minute gap to cover the scenery change between "We'll Meet Tomorrow" and "Still" which I believe required changing the first level of the set from the radio room to the smoke room and so that scene with the four portholes was written and the reprise of "To Be a Captain" was assigned to Etches to cover the change. It's remarkable how it was initially written out of necessity and ended up being one of the best scenes in the show, in my opinion.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 10/17/11 at 8:59pm

Cast album producers are not obligated to put the songs in show order on the recordings. Often a record producer will switch songs around to create a more coherent flow for the home listener. By the time TITANIC was released, most album producers did follow teh show order, but in this case the minor variations you note were made. It was never performed that way on stage.