Marla Mindelle, the actress who portrayed Celine Dion in the musical Titanique, was criticized for her performance at the Tony Awards at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City on June 7. Titanique is a reimagination of the blockbuster 1997 James Cameron flick, Titanic, and focuses on Celine Dion, the singer behind the movie’s hit song My Heart Will Go On.
The play was co-created, written, and produced by Marla Mindelle, with the actress playing Dion. Titanique was nominated for multiple Tony Awards this year, including Best Musical, Best Actress in a Musical for Marla Mindelle, and Best Book of a Musical.
At the Tony Awards, the show’s cast, which included Marla Mindelle, Jim Parsons, and Frankie Grande, performed I’m Alive, before Mindelle commandeered the stage for her solo performance of My Heart Will Go On. However, the performance received lacklustre responses from fans on X, with many criticizing Mindelle for her vocals.
“This woman playing Celine Dion sounds TERRIBLE!!! #TonyAwards.”
Many X users called the performance “busted” and a “disgrace” to Celine Dion.
Marla Mindelle made Tony history as the first woman to receive triple nominations for the same show
According to IMDb, Marla Mindelle was born on December 22, 1984, in Yardley, Pennsylvania. As per a November 2024 interview with Brooklyn Rail, her parents are Stephen (a musical theater composer) and Ryta Weiner, and she has two sisters. Mindelle graduated from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music in 2006.
She made her Broadway debut in South Pacific and has acted in The Wild Party, Cinderella, and The Drowsy Chaperone. One of her big breaks came on Sister Act in 2011, where she played Sister Mary Robert, based on the 1992 movie starring Whoopi Goldberg. Marla Mindelle had cocreated, written, composed, and produced two musicals, The Big Gay Jamboree and Titanique.
Titanique, a jukebox comedy musical, retold the story of Jack and Rose from James Cameron‘s Titanic through Celine Dion’s songs. In a May 2026 interview with People Magazine, Marla Mindelle, a self-professed Celine Dion fan, called her “the greatest singer in the world” and “the greatest personality in the world.”
She also revealed that the idea for the musical came when her co-writer Constantine Rousouli pitched it during a drunken night out, saying:
“We were living in Los Angeles, both trying to make it in Hollywood, and we found ourselves doing these movie-to-musical parodies at this dinner theater. And one night Constantine said, ‘What if we did Titanic with all Céline Dion music and you’ll be Céline?’ And I was like, ‘Absolutely not.’ “
Mindelle’s Titanique received four nominations at the 2026 Tony Awards, with Mindelle herself making history as the first woman to receive three nominations for the same show. The actress discussed the achievement in a May interview with Nikki Glaser for Interview Magazine, revealing that she had “horrible imposter syndrome.”
“I’m the first woman to be triple nominated for the same show… When I found that out, I was like, “Wait, really?” I’m so tired that you could tell me I was nominated for 18, and I’d be like, “Oh, cool…” When this is over, if I had a chance to 5150 myself and lock myself into an asylum, it would hit me. I have such horrible imposter syndrome, which I feel like we probably all do. You get to a certain level and you’re like, “I finally belong, but do I?”” she said.
Marla Mindelle received the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Performer in 2023 and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Entertainment or Comedy in 2025 for Titanique.
Edited by Juhi Marzia
