I started posting a little bit here and there.

Part I: The First CourseĮmily Jacobsen ( ), 26-year-old elementary teacher based in New York: Early in the quarantine, I just needed entertainment, so I downloaded TikTok. The story of how it came to be proves the power of a meme, and stands as a virtual monument to the theater industry’s resilience. Three days from the premiere, the streaming event had sold over 70,000 tickets, inching toward a $1 million fundraising goal, according to Nobile. ET, and all ticket sales will go toward the Actors Fund. The show, which stars musical heavyweights like Tituss Burgess, Adam Lambert, and André De Shields, will stream online January 1 at 7 p.m. What was once a joke on musical theater TikTok will now be a 90-plus-person benefit helmed by Tony-nominated playwright Jeremy O. And, against all odds and Disney’s historically territorial attitude toward intellectual property, hype for the idea willed the play into existence. Within the span of a few months, hundreds of users submitted their ideas for the show under the hashtag #ratatouillemusical.

Out-of-work creatives saw themselves in Ratatouille’s protagonist, an aspiring rat chef named Remy who is an underdog with a dream and the determination to realize it. What began with a single user’s video became a hypnotizing chorus of ideas for songs, costumes, music, and set design.

And eventually, the stray creative energy being pumped into the app zeroed in on an inexplicable project: Turning the 2007 Pixar film Ratatouille into a musical production. Though it rarely paid dividends, the platform was a bright spot of self-expression. Many of the people whose talents were normally put to use onstage were instead singing, dancing, orchestrating, acting, crafting, and puppeteering on TikTok. “Extraordinary designers and creators are bagging groceries at their local grocery stores.”Īt the same time, there was a ladder: TikTok’s download numbers spiked from under 40 million users in October 2019 to more than 90 million by June 2020. “There is a huge lack of federal support for our community during this time, which has sent so many people back to their hometowns,” said Greg Nobile, CEO of the Broadway theater company Seaview Productions. That’s been especially true during the pandemic, which has left entertainment workers across the country without jobs, from the behind-the-scenes production staff to actors, musicians, and dancers. Every step forward presents a threat to fall back, or a chance for growth. Navigating a career in the performing arts can feel like an exhausting game of Chutes and Ladders.

Watch ratatouille