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Crowdsourced ‘Ratatouille’ TikTok Musical Sells $1 Million In Tickets, Showing Theater Can Be Built Anywhere

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Classic French ratatouille is a stew of eggplant, zucchini, sweet peppers and tomato. All the elements are cooked until they blend together into a summer stew which tastes like home. In some ways that’s also the formula for musical theater. Tell a story through words and music, add engaging actors, some background elements, perhaps a dance number or two and if the elements all work in concert, time flies by.

Traditionally, theater is a heavy investment of time, treasure and talent. It takes money to create a story and the songs, build sets, hire a cast, book a theater and get the word out to potential audiences. Few shows make money, most require extensive subsidy just to come into existence. That’s why theater companies are always fundraising, and there are 45 “producers” (people who put up money for the show) onstage whenever there’s a Tony award win.

Toward the end of summer this year, with live theater across the nation shuttered, Em Jaccs posted a video onto TikTok celebrating Remy, the lead character from Ratatouille. That started a rolling trend of people posting their own Ratatouille themed TikTok songs and dances. From there came the call to create Ratatouille The Musical which seemed farfetched until it wasn’t

Normally, this is where the story would end. A bunch of people had fun posting their takes on the idea, those videos bounced around the internet then faded from view as the next fad gained steam. But not this time.

Instead, the project gained attention as Andrew Barth Feldman, well known for playing lead in Broadway’s Dear Evan Hansen, posted his own songs for Luigi, the untalented assistant chef character in Ratatouille. This led to more experienced hands joining the project including Lucy Moss who ultimately directed the show.

Soon, there was a stellar cast in addition to Andrew Barth Feldman: Tituss Burgess as Remy, Andre De Sheilds as Anton Ego, Wayne Brady as Remy’s father Django, Adam Lambert as Remy’s brother Emile, Kevin Chamberlin as Chef August Gusteau, Ashley Park as Chef Colette, Mary Testa as Chef Skinner, and Pricilla Lopez as Mabel.

Ratatouille The Musical became Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical with a 72 hour run and ticket proceeds going to The Actors Fund. It sold more than $1 million in tickets, with the lowest available price at $5. January 4, 2021 at 5pm EST is the deadline to buy a ticket, and the show is currently set to come down at 7pm EST the same day.

I watched the show with my family and little expectations. It’s not that I wasn’t expecting to like it. I just didn’t know what I was going to see. It took me about ten minutes to settle into the rhythm of the way it was filmed and edited: part TikTok, part Zoom and part quick cut MTV video. 

What really stood out was the quality of the talent which shone through. This show ran less than an hour and that time flew past. And, while I was watching, something occurred to me. This was a seminal moment for theater. In some ways, this was the first warning that theater could be built anywhere for distribution everywhere. Just look to how people currently communicate from nothing more than a smart phone or a small computer. They can publish stories on Medium, newsletters on SubStack, photos on Instagram, every instant thought on Twitter, video on YouTube and now, theatrical productions can be assembled and distributed similarly. The evolution of the past five years is opening access for any sort of art, thought or creative expression instantly to the world through massive platforms which carry the upload for free.

After watching theater tickets for shows like Hamilton become unavailable at any affordable price, until the pandemic forced the Hamilton Movie onto Disney Prime, its encouraging to see opportunity opening for creatives in the theater world to put on a show….to the world.

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