Marla Mindelle was running on three hours of sleep Tuesday morning after performing in Titanique Monday night and then waking up early to perform on The Today Show. That’s when the Tony nomination news came in.

“About 10 seconds before the performance, I found out that I was nominated. And then they’re like, ‘You’re on in five, four…” Mindelle said. “It’s once in a lifetime, I was like, this may never happen again.”

Mindelle received a Tony nomination for her role as Céline Dion in the Titanic parody musical, as well as a nomination for best book of a musical, after writing the book to the show alongside co-star Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue. The show is also nominated for best musical. 

While some of the musical follows the plot of the 1997 film, Mindelle and team have reimagined it so that Dion is a passenger aboard the ship and is now describing what she can remember of the experience, while singing Dion’s greatest hits, ranging from “Taking Chances” to “Beauty and the Beast.” She’s helped in this endeavor by the characters from the film including Jack (Rousouli), Rose (Melissa Barrera) and Victor Garber (Frankie Grande), as well as some newly imagined characters like the Iceberg, a Tina Turner-style villain played by Layton Williams, who was also Tony nominated Tuesday. 

These are the first Tony nominations for Mindelle, who dreamed up the concept with her co-writers about 10 years ago, before bringing the show Off-Broadway, famously starting in the basement of the grocery store Gristedes, before moving to a bigger Off-Broadway theater, the West End and now Broadway. 

She spoke with The Hollywood Reporter Tuesday about playing Dion for a decade, having to come up with nightly improv in the show and how it feels interacting with fans as the vocal superstar.

What do you make of this journey for Titanique? 

It’s been a 10-year journey. We started it on a credit card, on Ty’s credit card. I was buying my wig on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles for $75 and renting my dress from Rent the Runway. To then go Off-Broadway to the basement of Gristedes to then go all over the world, now on Broadway, I can’t tell you how blessed I feel, because I did not think that this would happen, not in my wildest dreams, and to finally be doing it, and not only that, but being recognized for multiple accomplishments in the echelon of the theater and by the Tony nominating committee. I’m just beyond humbled and proud and grateful. And to quote Céline Dion, ”It’s kooky crazy.” 

After playing Céline Dion for so long, how much does she inhabit you at this point? Where does she end and you begin?

I can switch into her so fast that it scares people. It’s a second language to me, like I never learned French, but I’ve learned Céline at this point. She is my second language. But I love that the 10-year process has also made me study her more and more and fall in love with her even more. I already was in love with her. I’m one of her biggest fans. I grew up listening to her, but to get to know her on a human level, and everything that she’s been going through in her personal life and with her health and everything like that, to be able to channel even one iota of what she does, you know, I feel honored to even be able to do that.

And Céline still hasn’t seen the show, right? 

She has not, but everyone in her camp has seen it. Her makeup artist, her backup dancers, her physician, her music lawyer, her sister Claudette and all say the same thing: that she would love it. But if she does see the show, you can never tell me, because I will probably pass out on stage. 

Do you know when these people and other celebrities are coming to the show? 

No, I’m such a neurotic mess that even if a second cousin, first-removed was like, I’m coming to see the show. I don’t want to know. I don’t even want to know when my parents are in the audience. So if Céline Dion was in the audience, I would pass away. She would bury me underground, and then step over me and be like, “OK, let’s do the show, girlfriend!” and it would somehow be exactly the same [show], I’m convinced.

Maybe that’s how Titanique ends its run. 

How iconic would that be? Honestly, that’s great, because I’m already so exhausted from the Broadway schedule. I need a break. Céline, come on in.

You have a much-lauded improv section in the middle of the show every night, in which you, as Celine, say you forgot what happens next and instead make up a story that Jack and Rose then have to reenact via pantomime. Often it’s tied to something happening in pop culture or current events. How do you prepare for that moment? 

I used to wing it, and now that it’s become such a mainstay of the show and something that people come back for, I do have to think about it, but I don’t think that long about it. I should probably think a lot harder about it. But again, with the show schedule, I spend 20 minutes thinking about it while I’m walking to my subway and traveling, and then when I get on stage, it’s showtime, and it really is live stand-up. Sometimes it slaps and sometimes it falls like a lead balloon.

In recent weeks, I’ve also heard a few improvs that reimagine the plots of other new musicals on Broadway. Was that secretly part of your Tonys campaign?

It’s so funny, when I was in the basement of a Gristedes, I could get away with saying anything. But now that we’re playing to 1200-1300 people, I realized that a lot of the more subversive, niche things that I like, like reality TV, Middle America does not quite know about. So I started doing these other musicals, because I was like, at least if they’re seeing theater, they must know the other shows too. But I’m in a show, so I can’t see any of the other nominees, so what would the scene be? And so that’s been kind of really fun and clever and creative. Also, you get two tickets for the price of one coming to see Titanique.

Have you had any weird audience interactions or moments that stand out?

Every single person walks in as if they have taken some sort of upper and so people will buy fans, and they will CLACK their fans. I mean, we call it a gay Super Bowl because I’ve never heard screaming like I’ve heard at Titanique. And I think what’s really special is by the end of the show, when I am interacting with the audience, people are reaching out to me, to touch me as if I’m Céline Dion. I’m being treated as if I’m literally her. And I feel like, how special is that they’ve come to see a Broadway show, and they’re getting, like, a concert and audience interaction too.

Some guy literally saw me [outside the theater the other day], and he, like, threw his phone. I think he was trying to get a picture to be like, “Oh my God, that’s Céline Dion.” And he threw his phone accidentally six feet in the air, because he was so spooked. It’s probably spooky and scary when you see me walk out in a gold dress, getting into a giant van. But I wasn’t going to Vegas, girlfriend. I was going to [the theater event] Miscast.