The opening 15 minutes of Titanic: The Musical, recreating the tragic 1912 sinking of the doomed ocean liner, is one of the most stirring, evocative sequences in all of musical theater. It grabs you as you meet dozens of characters boarding the ship, overflowing with great expectations — of success, of escaping poverty, of new life in America, of achieving dreams. But we know what awaits many of them in the freezing North Atlantic after the collision with an iceberg.   

A group of young women balance life, love and work as they try to make their mark on New York City. Sound familiar? But where Carrie and Co. represented an embellished fantasy of glamorous, high-powered, sexualized New Yorkers, HBO’s Girls offers a more realistic view of entering adulthood as a 21st century female.