‘Titanic the Musical’ returns to Port Angeles

Published 1:30 pm Wednesday, July 29, 2026

Ghostlight Productions is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a big crash and a splash revisiting its second show ever, “Titanic the Musical.”

Opening night is set for 7 p.m. Friday, July 31, in Port Angeles High School Auditorium, 304 E. Park Ave., Port Angeles.

More shows run Aug. 1-9 with 2 p.m. starts on Saturdays and Sundays, and a 7 p.m. showtime Thursday-Saturday. Find tickets at ghostlightwa.org.

The production troupe hosted the West Coast premiere of “Titanic” in the summer of 2016 at the Port Angeles Community Playhouse.

Mark Lorentzen, who acted and directed their original adaptation, co-directs this summer’s production with his mother Laura Lorentzen. He said “Titanic” was the first show where organizers felt the group’s productions were sustainable.

“When we started Ghostlight, it initially wasn’t even for more than just one show,” Mark said.

They started with “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” and then offered “Titanic” and had an “an incredible response,” he said.

“Titanic the Musical Sensation” is a 2014 adaptation of the 1997 award-winning Broadway show that debuted months before the popular film. The updated version follows three couples and is scaled to allow for smaller casts and productions.

Laura said producing the original would be almost impossible to recreate due to its scale and cost.

Mark said the scale of Ghostlight’s 10th anniversary show is larger than their original production in cast size, with more space on stage, and more budget for production, such as special effects and a tilting poop deck.

“The original Broadway show had a 28-piece orchestra, an almost 50-person cast, and a ship that sank on stage. It was a multi-million-dollar thing,” he said.

“The ensemble version has this really ingenious doubling scheme, so every actor on stage plays at least one other role.”

In Ghostlight’s latest version, some actors play up to five roles and alternate between characters in the different ship’s classes.

John Lorentzen, Mark’s father and Laura’s husband, serves once again as musical director leading an eight-piece live orchestra this time. Anna Pederson also returns to lead choreography. She is one of eight returning cast members, along with two orchestra members.

The first Ghostlight production had a few live players and now everyone is live.

“It’s gorgeous. It sounds incredible,” Mark said.

Lasting interest

Through his years of interest in the Titanic, the prolific ship that sank on April 15, 1912, after hitting an iceberg about 400 miles southeast of Newfoundland, Canada, Mark said he’s wondered why the public remains so fascinated with its story.

For him, it’s been reading about the passengers who sacrificed and did so much up until the end. “Titanic the Musical” features characters in the show who were real passengers.

“Those are the people who the musical celebrates,” he said.

Mark said the musical score enhances emotions of the characters, helping the audience to feel what the actors are portraying.

He and Laura said while people know how the show ends, audience members will get lost in the characters and time period.

“You forget as an audience member until the end of act one when you hear Frederick Fleet (played by Liam Getzin) say, ‘Iceberg ahead!’” Mark said. “You can almost hear it in the audience: ‘Oh yeah!’”

Laura said the Titanic has been of interest to Mark since he was a boy starting with trip to the library where they saw a children’s book about the ship.

She said the ship’s wreckage was found shortly after Mark’s birth, so there was a resurgence of interest.

“Mark just became obsessed with it,” Laura said. “We just couldn’t buy enough books that he would just voraciously read even at 5 and 6.”

Mark jokes that if reincarnation is real, he believes he may have been on the ship.

“For multiple reasons, I think the thing that always stuck with me is the stories of the people on the ship, how different it was from the first class perspective to the third class perspective to even the group perspective,” he said.

By chance, he plays fireman Frederick Barrett, one of the lead firemen on the ship, and recently learned they share a birthday.

The Lorentzens said the musical is at its core a story about the class system, but once the lifeboat left as the ship sank, everyone’s fate was the same.

But what people did as it happened is what stands out, they said.

“To me it shows that no matter what we’re all in this together,” Mark said. “Compassion is really important.”

Tickets for “Titanic the Musical” are available at ghostlightwa.org.

Cast members include:

Daniel Morrison as Captain Edward Smith

Caleb Crawford as J. Bruce Ismay

Ethan Hoch as First Officer William Murdoch

Michael Herring as Second Officer Charles Lightoller

Jeremy Pederson as Thomas Andrews

Trent Pomeroy as Isidor Strauss

Angela Poynter as Ida Strauss

Sean McDaniel as Jim Farrell

Kydn Meyer as Kate McGowan

Gabrielle Simonson as Kate Mullins

Kyla Ford as Kate Murphy

Hayden Pomeroy as Charles Clarke

Sunshine Peterson as Caroline

Joseph Burkett as Edgar Beane

Anna Pederson as Alice Beane

Liam Getzin as Frederick Fleet

Boden Cowgill as Harold Bride

Mark Lorentzen as Frederick Barrett

Aason Judd as Etches/ Pitman

Elliot Warren as Bellboy

Danielle Lorentzen as Madeline Astor

Cecie Gonzalez McClelland as Mistress Guggenheim

Brooklyn McKnight as Marion Thayer

Dakota Casinelli as Charlotte Cardoza

Darian Rentas as Mrs. Widener

Erica Kolasch as Ensemble

Marni Ann Whitehead as Ensemble

Becca Van Dyken as Ensemble

Thomas Jones as Ensemble

Orchestra includes:

Samantha Rodahl on Violin

Selby Jelle on Violin

Violet Knobel on Viola

Juliana Getzin on Viola

Evan Cobb on Cello

Braeden Baker on Cello

Clint Thomas on Bass

John Allman on Keyboard

John Lorentzen on Keyboard/ Conductor