ABOVE: The “Ratatouille” musical celebrates its fundraiser results. Photo via Twitter.
NEW YORK (AP) | TikTok’s crowdsourced “Ratatouille” musical cooked up some serious talent for its benefit concert, including roles for Tituss Burgess, Adam Lambert, Wayne Brady, André De Shields and Ashley Park.
“Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical” — fondly nicknamed the “Ratatousical” — began streaming Jan. 1, with tickets available until Jan. 4 for $5. Proceeds benefited The Actors Fund, raising at least $1,800,000 for entertainment industry workers.
You did it! You raised over $1 million to benefit @TheActorsFund! But we aren’t done yet. Tickets are still on sale all weekend long on @TodayTix.https://t.co/3YxozrE7Hd pic.twitter.com/QqUu6uzM0D
— Ratatouille Musical (@ratatousical) January 2, 2021
It is the product of several minds — many musical theater fans and out-of-work performers — who collaborated on original songs, lyrics and ideas to turn an animated, non-musical film into a two-act Broadway-style show.
The story for both film and musical centers on Remy, an ambitious rat who dreams of becoming a Parisian chef. Burgess will play Remy, Lambert plays his older brother, Emile, and Brady plays his father. Tony Award-winner De Shields plays food critic Anton Ego, Kevin Chamberlin plays the great chef Gusteau and Andrew Barth Feldman plays Gusteau’s “nephew” Linguini.
A number of its stars including Lambert celebrated its completion via social media:
This was fun! Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical on January 1st to support @TheActorsFund! Follow @Ratatousical and visit https://t.co/p8uFCP5CMf to learn more! pic.twitter.com/tQ0XWQcPVO
— ADAM LAMBERT (@adamlambert) December 28, 2020
Other cast members will be Tony-winner Priscilla Lopez, Tony-nominee Ashley Park, Owen Tabaka and three-time Tony-nominee Mary Testa. The show was performed with the 20-piece Broadway Sinfonietta orchestra.
The musical — based on the 2007 Disney/Pixar film — has been percolating over the past several months on TikTok and many of that social media platform’s viral stars who helped contribute to the show are involved in the production.
Both Emily Jacobsen, who wrote the original “Remy the Ratatouille” song for TikTok, and composer Daniel Mertzlufft, whose arrangement of that song helped kickstart the online effort are being given writing credit, as is Blake Rouse, who wrote two of the more popular songs on TikTok, “The Rat’s Way of Life” and “Ratatouille Tango.”
The streamed show was produced by Seaview Productions. It was adapted by Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley, choreographed by Ellenore Scott and directed by Lucy Moss.
To learn more about the production, visit its website.
