With its spot-on, affectionate parodies of the most beloved Broadway musicals from the Golden Age, “Schmigadoon” felt like just the right TV series for theatergoers who had to go without live theater; the first season premiered on Apple TV+ in July, 2021, while Broadway was still shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Five years later, that first season of “Schmigadoon” has itself been turned into a Broadway musical, opening tonight at the Nederlander with little changed. If there’s an entirely new cast (with the exception of Ann Harada, who is reprising the part of the mayor’s wife), and it’s no longer six episodes of thirty minutes apiece (its total running time is now about 45 minutes shorter), the stage show retains co-creator Cinco Paul’s songs, characters, plot, most of the dialogue verbatim, and much of the choreography by Christopher Gattelli, who is now also the director. There are different designers, but the stage show has the same look as the TV series: cheery, pastel-colored, painted-on.
Did this need to be brought to the stage? Maybe not, but it was probably inevitable, and I’m glad for it.
Melissa and Josh (now portrayed by Sara Chase and Alex Brightman) are two New York City doctors who meet in front of a hospital vending machine, where Melissa has put change in for a candy bar, but it gets stuck. Josh advises Melissa to kick the machine. She does so and all the candy bars in the machine cascade onto the floor. The two of them instantly become sweet on one another.
But years later, while still a couple, Melissa feels their relationship is stuck, so they go on a couples retreat in the Catskills, where they get lost in the woods during a rainstorm and suddenly hear church bells. They have stumbled onto the town of Schmigadoon, and the townsfolk burst into song and dance in greeting.
“What is happening?” Josh says to Melissa. “And who are they singing to?”
“It must be something they do for tourists. Like Colonial Williamsburg,” she replies.
“ We did not buy tickets!” Josh at the performers. “You are getting no money from us!” Josh is not a fan of musicals.
“Stop it. Let them sing!” Melissa is.
But as it turns out, these are not performers putting on a musical. Life is now a musical, and Josh and Melissa are stuck in it — and they won’t become unstuck unless and until they find true love; this is explained to them by a suddenly appearing leprechaun
.
One probably doesn’t need to know much about theater to recognize elements from the 1947 Lerner and Lowe Broadway musical “Brigadoon” (the title is a strong if weird clue.) In that musical, which was made into a 1954 movie starring Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, two American tourists stumble upon a hidden Scottish village that appears for only one day every 100 years. But “Schmigadoon!” is like those cascading candy bars; it quickly piles high with Broadway allusions – one pastiche musical number after another. In the TV series, they were performed by big Broadway stars. On stage, the performers are generally less well-known but just as crackerjack.
Ana Gasteyer is a hilarious, book-burning villain as Mildred Layton, an apparent takeoff of Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn from Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man”; her rousing “Tribulation” is reminiscent of “Ya Got Trouble.”
There are several other characters and a major plot from “The Music Man” Isabelle McCalla is schoolteacher Emma Tate who falls in love with Josh because he give her young brother Carson (Ayaan Diop) a kazoo. (“I can’t find a trumpet anywhere.”) Emma confesses that Carson is actually her son, not her brother – which is not in the original but devotees of that musical often speculate about it because the brother is so much younger than his sister.
The show several times brings this kind of subtext of these old shows to the surface – most prominently when Brad Oscar as Mayor Menlove eventually sings:
I’m a homosexual
It’s no longer subtextual
I’m attracted to men
Max Clayton portrays a sexy carnival barker named Danny Bailey who is obviously modeled on the carnival barker Billy Bigelow in Rodger and Hammerstein’s “Carousel.” I detect the sentiment that Billy sings in “If I Loved You,” as translated into a song Danny sings, “You Can’t Tame Me.” (Others see this song as homage to “I’m a Bad, Bad Man” from Irving Berlin’s “Annie Get Your Gun.” There is no reason it couldn’t be inspired by both.)
Cinco Paul’s song is clearly a parody, but his lyrics are also clever in their own right:
You can’t tame me
I’m like the wind on the sea
A music teacher named Annabella
Tried her best to make me her fella
But I choose to live a cappella
Later, Danny and Melissa sing a jazzy duet, “Enjoy the Ride,” which some have found similar in tone to Frank Loesser’s musical “Guys and Dolls,” but which I could swear takes musical phrasing and bits of melody directly from Loesser’s risque duet “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”
“Oklahoma!” “The Sound of Music,” “Kiss Me, Kate,” “South Pacific,” “Finian’s Rainbow” (that’s the leprechaun.) They’re all embedded in “Schmigadoon,” there for the delectation of the audience, who at the very least might enjoy feeling savvy enough to have detected the less direct references.
Fans of the show can argue that “Schmigadoon” has something serious to say about the importance of being optimistic, the true meaning of love, the evils of bigotry, the possibility of change and redemption. Detractors can argue that the Golden Age musicals the show imitates communicate those same sentiments, and do so more effectively, which is why they have endured. I don’t know that I need to pick a side. “Schmigadoon” is sort of like “The Book of Mormon” and more like “Forbidden Broadway,” and, like both, it made me laugh.
Schmigadoon!
Nederlander Theater through September 6
Running time: Two hours and 30 minutes, including one intermission.
Tickets: $59 – $299. Digital lottery: $45. General rush: $40 (Broadway Rush and Lottery Policies)
Written by Cinco Paul, based on the series “Schmigadoon” by Apple TV+
Directed and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli;
Scenic Design by Scott Pask; Costume Design by Linda Cho; Lighting Design by Donald Holder; Sound Design by Walter Trarbach; Hair and Wig Design by Tom Watson; Make-Up Design by Ashley Ryan;
Cast: Alex Brightman as Josh Skinner, Sara Chase as Melissa Gimble, Max Clayton as Danny Bailey, Ayaan Diop as Carson, Ana Gasteyer as Mildred Layton, Ann Harada as Florence Menlove, Ivan Hernandez as Doc, McKenzie Kurtzas Betsy, Isabelle McCalla as Emma Tate, Brad Oscar as Mayor Menlove, Maulik Pancholy as the Reverend Layton
