Titanic is a musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Peter Stone. It is based on the story of the RMS Titanic which sank on its maiden voyage on April 15, 1912.

The musical opened on Broadway on April 23, 1997, in a production directed by Richard Jones; it won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and ran for 804 performances. It is not related to the 1997 film of the same name.

In 1985, the wreck of the RMS Titanic was found about 370 miles (600 km) south-southeast off the coast of Newfoundland, at a depth of about 12,500 feet beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. This attracted the interest of Maury Yeston, a musical theater composer and lyricist best known for the 1982 Broadway musical Nine. Said Yeston:

"What drew me to [a musical about the story of the Titanic] was the positive aspects of what the ship represented – 1) humankind's striving after great artistic works and similar technological feats, despite the possibility of tragic failure, and 2) the dreams of the passengers on board: 3rd Class, to immigrate to America for a better life; 2nd Class, to live a leisured lifestyle in imitation of the upper classes; 1st Class, to maintain their privileged positions forever. The collision with the iceberg dashed all of these dreams simultaneously, and the subsequent transformation of character of the passengers and crew had, it seemed to me, the potential for great emotional and musical expression onstage."

Both Yeston and Peter Stone, the show's librettist, knew the idea was an unusual one for a musical: as Yeston explained, "I think if you don't have that kind of daring damn-the-torpedoes, you shouldn't be in this business. It's the safe sounding shows that often don't do well. You have to dare greatly, and I really want to stretch the bounds of the kind of expression in musical theater."

Yeston saw the story as unique to turn-of-the-century British culture, with its rigid social class system and romanticizing of progress through technology. "In order to depict that on the stage, because this is really a very English show," said Yeston, "I knew I would have to have a color similar to the one found in the music of the great composers at that time, like Elgar or Vaughan Williams; this was for me an opportunity to bring in the musical theater an element of the symphonic tradition that I think we really haven't had before. That was very exciting." The producers consulted the archives of the Titanic International Society for accurate portrayal of the play's characters.

The high cost of Titanic′s set made it impossible for the show to have traditional out-of-town tryouts. Titanic′s previews began at Broadway's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in 1997 with various technical troubles which were overcome by opening night, initially receiving mixed to positive reviews. The New Yorker′s was the first of numerous later unqualified raves: "It seemed a foregone conclusion that the show would be a failure; a musical about history's most tragic maiden voyage, in which fifteen hundred people lost their lives, was obviously preposterous.... Astonishingly, Titanic manages to be grave and entertaining, somber and joyful; little by little you realize that you are in the presence of a genuine addition to American musical theatre."

It ran 804 performances winning five Tony Awards (including Best Musical), and the advocacy of Rosie O'Donnell. With a Grammy Award nominated cast album, over the next twenty years the show received hundreds of professional and amateur productions worldwide and has become a national and international staple of musical theater.