You have never seen “Titanic” portrayed like this before.
A one-man play from the mind of actor and creator Michael Kinnan, “Never Let Go” is getting rave reviews after sold out shows in New York and right here in Los Angeles.
Kinnan joined Andy Riesmeyer live in studio on Sunday to talk about the show and an upcoming encore performance at the Dynasty Typewriter on Wilshire Boulevard.
“[‘Titanic’] has been in our lives for over 25 years,” Kinnan told the KTLA 5 Weekend Morning News. “I was like ‘I know this script; I know these words and people need to hear them through a different lens.”
“A really big part of the inspiration was [the idea of] how I could take this massive spectacle and put it into new terms and new context,” he added.
In addition to a college course sparking his idea, Kinnan says he was also influenced by the 2016 presidential election to get his true feelings out, especially through a medium that he felt was “under attack.”
“The arts were under attack…queer people have always been under attack, and I felt that [I could tell] the ‘straightest’ and most famous story in Hollywood,” he said. “The show was born out of a class at Marymount Manhattan College…and I wanted to be a director – I was studying directing – but then I kind of thought ‘I have to cast myself’.”
And it’s not just fans that are giving the “very queer” one-man reenactment of the legendary 1997 film props; the show was described by critics at the New York Times as “a feat of ingenuity regardless of whether you have seen the movie.”
Kinnan will be performing again in Los Angeles at the Dynasty Typewriter on July 1 at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets to the 18+ event can be purchased here.