Illustration: Ryan Inzana
Constantine Rousouli has lived in the world of the Titanic on and off for the past decade. He co-created the Broadway musical parody Titaníque with his co-star and former roommate Marla Mindelle and director Tye Blue. Now, as the show barrels into Tonys season, Rousouli is pushing through ten shows per week and stepping back from his postshow partying days. “I was doing Wicked on Broadway, going out until five in the morning hammering vodka-sodas, waking up for a 2 p.m. matinee, and could still bring the house down,” says the onetime Fiyero. “Now I have a glass of wine and I want to murder myself.”
Thursday, April 16
I wake up at 8:30. I do hot water and lemon in the morning to get everything going, and then I immediately march my ass to Sweetleaf to get an iced coffee with almond milk and a rosemary biscuit. I house the fuck out of this biscuit because it’s absolutely incredible. It’s buttery, it’s dense, it’s cold, but it’s still moist on the inside. I know that’s a tricky word for some people, but she’s moist.
I go to my amazing organic grocery store Jubilee and get ground beef (93/7 only), eggs, and fruit. I go back to my apartment and make two cups of the ground beef with four pasture-raised eggs. I also do a big-ass bowl of berries — strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, honey — that I eat with the ground beef and eggs. You can call me a meat-and-fruit kind of gay.
I walk the Pulaski Bridge to the 7 train at Long Island City, then take it to the 1 at Times Square. That song “I will walk 500 miles” is about me. That’s how much I walk. I have a gym in my building, but I love people and I want to go to a real gym. Now that I am back on Broadway, I am happy to have a steam room to soothe my voice before I have to sing. I go four days a week tops — cut to those five-show weekends where you have double shows back-to-back, there’s no way in hell my old ass is going to be going to the gym and then doing two shows.
After the gym, I head across the street to the 24th Street Whole Foods. It’s the second-best Whole Foods in the city. The best — and their hot bar is much better — is Columbus Circle. Bryant Park can choke. I will never go to that Whole Foods ever again.
Even though it’s close to the theater, I can’t even be seen there. I go to get a big-ass organic rotisserie chicken. Sorry, I’m on this organic kick. Everything has to be organic. I put plenty of other shit in my body, but then I whip around and am like, “Yeah, it has to be organic.” I went to Brazil three years ago for New Year’s with friends and I ended up getting a parasite that lasted in my body for nine months. I was like, Cool, cool, cool, tight, tight, tight. Rounds and rounds of antibiotics that did not work. My stomach extended out like ten inches, I couldn’t put pants on, no food was being digested, my joints were hurting for nine months, like I was pregnant. My sister’s an acupuncturist, and she was like, “Go to this Chinese medicine doctor in Chinatown.” I love holistic shit. I go to this guy, he gives me this protocol, we kill the parasites. But he also said, “You have to change your diet.” So I was a carnivore for two months. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, red meat, nothing else. No vegetables, no fruits, no starches, no sugars, no whatever. The parasite was gone within two weeks. I’ve never looked better in my life. The mental clarity was unbelievable, the clearest I’ve ever been. My skin, all these weird little pimple bumps I had on my shoulders from lifting, completely gone. I looked like I was 12. I was like, Should I just be a carnivore? But that’s crazy. I need vegetables. So after a while, I started adding more stuff back in.
I get potatoes from the hot bar because I’m basically a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, which I never thought I was, but I guess I am. I’m a fucking garbage disposal, okay?
I eat it all at the theater with my hands. I have no time to sit and prepare utensils and everything. The show is in 45 minutes. First of all, where am I going to put the chicken when it’s out of the bag? It’s not like I’m going to have a cutting board at the theater. So I scrounge it like an absolute monster, ripping pieces of meat. And then the bag just sits there and I’m like, “Well, I guess I got to go onstage now.”
I go home and make eggs cooked in Irish raw butter with sea salt. I always cook with butter or olive oil. Not doing seed oils, mama. I can just digest the eggs right before bed and I don’t have to get acid reflux. I need more eggs. I’m Gaston from Beauty and the Beast and I need six eggs. I also have a couple squares of dark chocolate with sea salt, because you have to.
Friday, April 17
I wake up and I absolutely want to kill myself. I am exhausted. But it’s great. I have my hot water and lemon, and then I head to my other favorite new coffee shop, Coffee Check. I lived in Harlem before Brooklyn. I was in Harlem — perfectly situated for Broadway — and then I announced I’m going to Broadway and move to Greenpoint right before. Stupid idiot. Greenpoint is not easy for a Broadway commute. But I’m happy.
I wanted to get rid of my old furniture, so my friend Mariano Testa is helping me. He’s a creative director but does interior design on the side. He just has the best eye. We meet for coffee and a croissant, and he shows me his mood board. I hate it. Just kidding, I love it. It’s everything I want and more. I go back to my apartment and do some laundry. Then, I have my same beef and eggs around noon. I head to the gym and grab a rotisserie chicken to devour in my dressing room. I have a solo dressing room, thank God. I wouldn’t dare eat a rotisserie with somebody in the room. During Titaníque the first time around, I got COVID like four times. I left a rotisserie chicken in the fridge while I was gone. I come back after ten days, open the fridge, and it smelled like a dead person’s body was in there. I was like, “You guys — how does nobody clean the fridge? What the fuck is that smell?” And they were like, “Hey, girl, you’re the only one who uses the fridge.” Oops! It actually was mine from two and a half weeks earlier. I was like, “We gotta get a new fridge.”
I do the show and head home. I’m old. I don’t go out anymore. I wish I could vicariously live through my 23-year-old self, where I used to literally stay out until 6 a.m. wasted at a bar and then do two shows and be completely fine.
Saturday, April 18
On two-show days, I need a ton of coffee: When I wake up, right before show No. 1, and right before show No. 2. My coffee order is always a cold brew with almond milk and simple syrup. I had to switch from Splenda. I was addicted to Splenda for years. That’s probably why I got the parasite. I have my beef and eggs and head off to the theater.
I always get to the theater 45 minutes before curtain. I warm up for about 20 minutes, then give my voice a second to breathe. By showtime, it’s great. It doesn’t fall asleep. It feels like we’ve woken the bitch up, and she is ready to belt her tits off.
I do the first show; it goes well. I go outside and sign at the stage door for my one adoring fan, then I steam. Before Titaníque, I took a huge break from theater. I was out of practice doing these two-show days. I told myself, I love theater so much that I needed to take a step back, because I didn’t want to hate the thing that I loved so much by getting caught in the rat race of it all, the Broadway biz and the stupid shit that goes along with it. I’ve done those productions before where you feel like a cog in a wheel. Where’s my authentic self? Where’s my ability to just show a part of me, not be a carbon copy of somebody else? I don’t want to do that anymore.
I skip the rotisserie chicken and treat myself with a chicken club on a whole-wheat wrap from Carve. Carve is what got me into wraps. It was a roast turkey wrap with chipotle mayo, mozzarella, and crispy onions. It would punch me in the face so hard. I loved it so much.
We have about two and a half hours between shows. I can’t walk all the way back across the planet to Greenpoint, so I’m stuck for the day like a bag lady. Thank God I have a dressing room. I have an amazing cot. I shut up. Everybody’s old and we all take naps, and then we reconvene at the half-hour. I have to go to everybody’s dressing room to say hi. Social butterfly!
We are currently doing five-show weekends, and Saturday nights at 8 p.m. are the hardest. Inside, I am dying a slow death. I want to absolutely murder myself, even though I still kill it. After the second show, I get Schmackary’s: On two-show days, I need that disgusting, incredible Funfetti cookie. I go home yet again because I’m a loser. I make the eggs immediately, take a shower, maybe steam, and get my ass into bed. I try to watch reality TV — I just started Rhode Island Housewives and I am living for it —but I fall asleep within three seconds.
Sunday, April 19
Another two-show day. I get my iced coffee, make my eggs and beef, and get my ass together even faster because it’s a 2 p.m. and a 6:30 p.m. this time. Marla, my co-creator and brain sharer, always makes fun of me for the eggs. Between shows, I shut up and go outside to sign at the stage door. People are always like, “Wait, who’s that? Oh, you’re not Jim Parsons.”
Sunday night is always my favorite because we’re delirious and the body’s just like, “Haha, joke’s on you. You’re doing this again.” Luckily, because it’s an earlier show, we’re done by 8:15. If somebody I really love comes to the show, I’ll grab some dinner after with them. A staple is Morandi in the West Village. Sometimes I just need some cacio e pepe, baby. I love that place. And there’s an amazing restaurant right by my apartment called Glasserie that I love. Tonight, no one special comes to the show, so I get a Schmackary’s chocolate-chip cookie, make my eggs when I get home, and completely pass out.
Monday, April 20
Most Broadway shows are off on Monday — not us. I drag myself to Coffee Check, and my publicist Sam starts texting and calling me. I’m like, Girl, it’s too early. “CONGRATULATIONS!” “For what?” I find out I am nominated for a Drama League Award. First time ever for me as an actor. The show has been nominated a million times, but for me personally — I was named, and it felt like I’ve been seen. You like me. You really like me. I head to Jubilee. Then I go home and make my beef and eggs. I know I eat an insane amount of meat, but I’m Greek, so it was always around. So was fish, but I’m not really a fish person. Sushi? I’d rather eat rats than eat sushi.
I go to the gym and do arms. I pull something in my neck. I house my rotisserie chicken and do the show. It’s my ninth show in a row. One more until a day off.
Snooki and Luke Evans both come. Iconic combo. Snooki is like, “This is one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen. I love this movie.” I head home and make my night eggs, and eat a bowl of beef-tallow chips that I got at Jubilee. They’re cooked in beef fat. Gross. I said I wasn’t doing seed oils anymore! The red-meat-every-day of it all really ignited something in my brain. I haven’t gotten sick, I feel so great, so I’m not going to ask questions. I’m sure people are going to be like, You’re crazy and you’re QAnon. But I’m not. Still gay, still a liberal!
EAT LIKE THE EXPERTS.
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