In Dialogue: Billie Aken-Tyers on 'Titaníque'

Billie Aken-Tyers (2013) is a rising director and playwright in the New York theatre scene with credits including Beetlejuice, SIX, and Jagged Little Pill. Her work continues to explore contemporary themes, making Billie an exciting emerging voice. Billie spoke with us during the lead-up to the Broadway opening of Titaníque, the jukebox musical set to the music of Céline Dion, for which she serves as Associate Director. We squeezed in our interview at the only available time: a Monday, when the theatre was dark.

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You’re working on a new musical, Titaníque, opening on Broadway. Tell me about this.

The show is having a massive overhaul. We’ve got a brand-new set, and instead of a five-piece band, it’s now a 19-piece orchestra. There have been a lot of changes to the choreography and the script, and it’s become a very different show. It’s exciting because it means audiences are getting a completely new experience.

We’re making lots of tweaks and edits every day. One of the great things about this show is how adaptable the people involved are. For example, we’re adding new material for Jim Parsons and expanding Deborah Cox’s “All By Myself” number. There are a lot of moving parts.

I saw the star-studded cast.

It’s quite an interesting scenario, because we have a mix of people involved. Some originated their roles, some did the show Off-Broadway, and others are completely new to the show. So it really is a mixed bag in terms of where everyone is coming from. Jim [Parsons] has been an absolute dream.

Juggling so many different duties, wearing so many hats during your time with the production.

I’ve been with the project for a long time, and yes, wearing a lot of different hats. I had done some pre-production work with choreographer Ellenore Scott and director Tye Blue, back when I wasn’t fully focused on directing. I was involved briefly, then left to do another show and didn’t think much of it. I just thought, “Oh, that was a strange little experience, that little Titanic musical.”

I wasn’t part of the show when it was at the Asylum Off-Broadway. At the time, nobody thought it would be successful: they expected it to run for three weeks. It opened, and then the pandemic hit. When I came back on board in November 2022, it all happened very quickly: I interviewed on a Thursday, met with producers on Friday, saw the show on Saturday, and started on Tuesday. We ran Off-Broadway at the Daryl Roth Theatre for two-and-a-half years.

Can you say more about your pivot from actor to director?

I loved being a performer. I absolutely loved it to death. I was lucky and worked consistently for the better part of eleven years. And during that time, I’d already started to write and direct, so I was balancing all three. When I wasn’t in an acting gig, I was directing. When I wasn’t directing, I was writing.

And then the pandemic hit. I went into the pandemic a very different person than I came out. I went in single, I came out married. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I would never have met my husband if it weren’t for that crazy world event.

But the thing was, toward the end of my acting career, I worked on several projects where I started to feel very tired of my lack of agency as an actor. I was also seeing a lot of abusive practices in rooms, and I knew that’s not how I work. I know that the people in my rooms have experiences that are full of joy, and that they are well taken care of, that they are safe.

I directed a show around that time, and my husband said, “You’re so happy when you’re directing. You’re so happy.” And then I had a show that I was acting in. It was a four-person play and dream job making great money with beautiful people doing this show. But I was bored. And I had a moment where I thought, “I shouldn’t be bored. This isn’t right anymore.”

Around that time, I had a conversation with a friend of mine, and he said to me, “Look, you’ve spent the better part of a decade spinning all these plates. What happens if you just water one seed and see what happens?”

Your writing. You have a play, Your Alice, under your belt and a musical on the way.

Your Alice was something I worked on for a long time. I started working on it when I was at the Academy. I worked on it from page to stage for about seven years, developing it with a lot of actors that I met at the Academy. The production that premiered Off-Broadway had Academy actors in it. A theater company picked it up, then a producer picked it up, then we took it to BAM Off-Broadway before Edinburgh Fringe, and then to London. 

It was fundamental, because they had all engaged in the same training, which was quite a unique experience. I don’t think a lot of people have that with a show. And there were people like my really good friend Tamara [Sevunts], who was in my acting class at the Academy.

It still remains a very special and very formative show, and so much of that came from the collaboration. We worked on so many drafts of that script, there are hundreds and hundreds of drafts in my inbox. I feel like that play walked so that Such a Precious Thing could run.

They deal with very different, but similar, themes. Such a Precious Thing is a musical co-written with my friend Trey Everett, who’s a fabulous playwright, and Jane Bruce, an incredible indie singer-songwriter who I was a huge fan of before I started working on the piece.

We put together a reading for an audience early on. That’s a pretty risky thing to do: to present your material with no rehearsal, with a bunch of actors you may or may not know. I cold-emailed some pretty incredible Broadway talent, and I was like, “Hey, I know you love me, and I know you love Jane, I know you love Trey—will you come and do this for me?” [Laughs.] And they all said yes. They all came and did it. Some of them even learned some of the songs, which is a big ask.

We sat around with probably 30 producers and read the piece. I had my face buried in the script the whole time but kept thinking, “Look up because you’re going to want to remember this one day.”

We got a wonderful producer out of it. We built so many really fabulous relationships with regional theaters out of it. We’re in a very, very good position.

Subject matter seems to really matter to you.

I think so. These are really hard things to talk about, but things we deal with all the time. The more conversations we can have, the better. It’s the only way things are going to change. Creating something where people have a shared experience is really important, and exciting work to me.

I think theatre should challenge us. This is something I’ve talked about a lot with my co-writers: theater is a live and very tangible experience that you’re having in a room with other people. If you’re watching a movie or TV show, or reading a book, and something is triggering, you can turn it off. Theatre you can’t. While challenging, I want people to know that they’re still safe and taken care of.

You have Titaníque opening soon. What else is next?

We’re opening on Broadway soon, yeah. I’ll be continuing with that and have a busy year ahead. I’m working on another new musical, Moonfaker, that I’ve been developing for a while now. We’re having a reading and will continue to develop it. I’m also working on Marathon, a musical having a big workshop this year.

I’ll be back working on Laura Benanti’s show at some point in the next few months. At the end of the year, I’ll be directing a production of a Christmas Carol at the Hanover Theatre. It’ll be exciting to play in this gorgeous 2,000-plus-seat house. And I’ll be continuing to develop my own work while staying involved in these projects.

Thanks so much for your time, Billie.

Thank you so much for chatting with me. If you have any more questions, I'm an open book.

Opening night for Titaníque is slated for Sunday, April 12th at the St. James Theatre.