Like Titanique, Schmigadoon seems to want to capitalize on audience familiarity—not just with the Apple TV series it’s based on but with the old-fashioned Broadway musicals of the past it satirizes like Oklahoma, Carousel, The Sound of Music, The Music Man, Finian’s Rainbow and, of course, Brigadoon.
The show, also like Titanique, is a send up, a spoof. Both musicals are incredibly entertaining and have a mad fab talented ensemble working their respective Broadway butts off singing and dancing and sillying at the speed of sound. In addition, both productions scream glorious stage dazzle, with vibrant costumes, eye-popping scenic color, vivid lighting and appropriately bombastic orchestrations.
Both are eliciting tons of laughs from their audiences while sending positive messages about the power of love and how we should all be coming together and celebrating the uniqueness in each individual.
At the beginning of Schmigadoon we meet two doctors Josh Skinner (Tony nominee Alex Brightman) and Melissa Gimble (Sara Chase), who fall for each other at a vending machine and whose relationship soon hits the skids, so they go on retreat in the woods. Lost and bickering, they cross a bridge and end up in Schmigadoon, a majestic ‘throwback to the show days of yore’ town where people burst into musical numbers.
Everyone cheerily smiles and appears ridiculously happy, but even in the magical musical land of Schmigadoon there are villainous townsfolk who want to eliminate anyone who isn’t living a squeaky-clean life, led by the Bible-waving puritan Mildred Layton (a marvelously mean Ana Gasteyer).
Josh and Melissa discover, via a leprechaun, that the only way to get out of Schmigadoon and back to their precious NYC is to go back over the bridge with their true loves. Simple, since they’re in love, right? Not so fast. It’s not working. So, they fight some more and then go out on their own individual quests.
Melissa follows Tunnel-of-Love rapscallion Danny Bailey (a sexy and deliciously devilish Max Clayton who invokes a cross between Billy Bigelow from Carousel and any background Bob Fosse musical player). Melissa also finds herself being courted by the prim and proper Doc (Ivan Hernandez).
Meanwhile Josh ends up winning the picnic basket of young Betsy (a wonderful wackadoodle McKenzie Kurtz)…just how young is she? Pretty young. And her dad, shotgun in tow, is after Josh to marry her. But Josh seems to be falling for the local schoolmarm (Isabelle McCalla).
A subplot involves the secretly gay Mayor (Brad Oscar) crushing on the town preacher (Maulik Pancholy), who is married to Mildred.
As you can see there’s a lot of story and it is a fun kind of lunacy, but it’s the kind of crazy that often feels too predictable and safe when it could have been more gutsy. Of course that might scare off the tourists…
Cinco Paul wrote the book, music and lyrics and has added a few new songs.
A couple of numbers show just how clever and daring the show might have been. “Baby Talk,” a take-off on The Sound of Music’s “Do-Re-Me,” has Melissa teaching a naive, pregnant couple who aren’t familiar with the word vagina, about how a child is conceived and then birthed. And the rousing showstopper, “Tribulation,” stealing delightfully from “Ya Got Trouble” from The Music Man, is a bracing and breathless ditty about the “promiscuity and depravity” creeping into their haven, led by the glorious Gasteyer.
Chase is sure to get a Tony nomination, not just because it’s a terribly lean year for the lead actress in a musical category—and it is—but because she’s absolutely terrific, hilarious and, boy, can she belt a tune!
One of the standout moments has Melissa and Doc being interrupted by the arrival of Countess Gabrielle Von Blerkom (Afra Hines, amazing), basically the Baroness from The Sound of Music. It’s a sidesplittingly funny scene—I won’t say why. I wish there were more boundary pushing sequences like that one. Interesting, I read that her song got cut in previews. A shame.
Schmigadoon, along with Titanique, are my fave new musicals of the season, but one must consider that there are only six new musicals opening in the 2025-26 season—two were just awful, and I have not seen The Lost Boys yet. A distinction also needs to be made with the notion of new vs. original. There was only one musical that was not based on a narrative feature or doc or TV series—Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York). An argument can be made for Titanique, which has an original book, but it is obvi loosely based on the James Cameron film, Titanic. I bring all this up to voice my frustration with Broadway producers who refuse to nurture original ideas for musicals, and, instead, constantly turn to film adaptations and the like. Shame on them. At least we can take some solace in the fact that there are no jukebox musicals this season.
All that said, Schmigadoon, directed and choreographed with verve and panache by Christopher Gattelli (Death Becomes Her) is a most pleasant way to spend an afternoon or evening.
Here’s hoping Schmicago is coming soon and will embody that excitement, originality, audacity and occasional recklessness that marked the work of composers like Sondheim and Kander & Ebb and directors like Fosse and Hal Prince.
Schmigadoon is currently playing at the Nederlander Theatre (208 W.41st Street, NYC).
For tickets visit: Schmigadoon
