TikTok’s fan-made crowdsourced Ratatouille musical is making the jump from social media to the stage. Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical is going to debut as an actual show for a one-night-only concert on January 1st, which will benefit The Actors Fund.
The streamed show will be produced by Seaview Productions (best known for producing Slave Play, the most Tony Award-nominated show in Broadway history) and is being presented “in association with TikTok.”
The so-called Ratatouille musical — based on the 2007 Disney / Pixar film — has been percolating over the past several months on TikTok. What started as a one-off bit has slowly snowballed into a massive undertaking, with bored Broadway fans, composers, set designers, costume makers, choreographers, and more working together to build bits and pieces of the (until now) fictional show.
There aren’t many details yet on what the actual show will look like, although the musical promises to “celebrate the delectable crowd-sourced creation by giving it the full high-kicking, lip-smacking Broadway treatment.” Just what that means in terms of the scope of the show is, as of yet, unclear. The cast and creative team have similarly not yet been announced, although some of “Broadway’s biggest and brightest talents” are apparently involved.
Many of the viral TikTok stars that have helped contribute to the crowdsourced show in the past few months are involved in the production, too. Blake Rouse (the composer behind two of the more popular songs on TikTok, “The Rat’s Way of Life” and “Ratatouille Tango”) tells The Verge that his songs will be featured in the show. Jess Siswick — another TikTok creator — is having her mocked-up Playbill program for the show appear as the actual promotional artwork.
Two of the Ratatouille musical’s original creators also appear to be involved, or at least approve of the project: both Emily Jacobsen (@e_jaccs), who wrote the original “Remy the Ratatouille” song for TikTok, and composer Daniel Mertzlufft, whose viral theatrical arrangement of that song helped kickstart the Ratatouille frenzy, have both tweeted about the project.
Most importantly, though, the project appears to have Disney’s blessing: “Although we do not have development plans for the title, we love when our fans engage with Disney stories. We applaud and thank all of the online theatre makers for helping to benefit The Actors Fund in this unprecedented time of need,” notes a Disney statement provided to The Verge.
The show will stream through TodayTix on January 1st at 7PM ET, with tickets ranging from $5 to $50 (depending on the desired donation); following the premiere, the show will be available to watch on demand for 72 hours.
