During the end of 2020, thousands of TikTok creators united online to create a musical version of the 2007 Oscar Winner
Ratatouille. In strange year filled with loss, boredom, and a lack of live theater, these creators collaborated to make costumes, songs, and the works for this version of the Pixar classic. It culminated on Friday January 1, 2021 with a virtual benefit performance and raised $1 million in ticket sales for The Actors Fund.
The performance was pre-recorded and completely made online while the actors were in their homes. With some green screen stitching and film trickery, the full musical was constructed. At about an hour runtime, it certainly calls back to earlier this year when there were virtual reunions every week and performance artists attempted to hold shows on Zoom. Perhaps, you went to a friend’s strange improv show back in May. However, for those who were excited, I am sure it brought joy to them.
The cast has a slew of huge Broadway, singing, and Hollywood talent attached, including Titus Burgess, Wayne Brady, Adam Lambert, and Ashley Park. Garner actors like this makes this silly musical all the more fun. The nature of this production also could have never happened without the pandemic. In some ways, it is simply special to see these artists performing something new once more, and it certainly has a cult following on social media.
It has had a pretty insane rise in popularity in just over three months. This brings about one question: What’s exactly next for this musical? While it certainly has garnered mixed reviews, meme-culture and moreover the internet at large is a powerful tool. Sonic was changed, Rosario Dawson is Ahsoka Tano, and against all odds, somehow, thousands of out of work artists came together to create a musical version of Ratatouille starring real Broadway heavyweights.
Will there be an actual live Broadway version one day? Will it be turned into a Live-Action-CGI remake by Disney? Will it simply be remembered as that weird time we all spent money on a Zoom musicals to never see them again?
Or will it be something else?
If anything this shows that there is still that weird loving “the show must go on” type spirit in thousands around the world, and at worst it’s simply a sweet attempt.
Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical is available until Monday January 3, 2021. Tickets can be purchased here.
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