Season two of Schmigadoon! is on Apple TV Plus. Josh and Melissa, played by Keegan-Michael Key and Cecily Strong, end up in Schmicago, the reimagined world of ’60s and ’70s musicals. Season one focused on the happier times, and tunes, of ’40s and ‘50s musicals.
Cinco Paul is the co-creator, executive producer and showrunner. Ken Daurio is a co-creator too. Paul wrote the music.
At a TCA Winter Press Tour event in January, Paul cited Cabaret, Chicago, Pippin, Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street as influences on the new season. “Musicals got darker,” he said. “They don't have happy endings. They're more complicated.”
Paul also noted how the music from the shows of this era also got more complicated and varied.
Ariana DeBose, Martin Short, Dove Cameron, Jaime Camil, Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming and Jane Krakowski are also in the cast.
Cameron said it is these types of musicals that get her out of bed in the morning. “It was so much fun to be able to dive into this, as well as taking forward with us the sort of gorgeous, larger-than-life, very campy, celebratory elements of musical theater that Cinco has so rooted in the world that he's created,” she said. “It was really a dream come true. And especially, the setting, the sets, the costumes, the songs that he was able to bring to life — it was all incredibly magical for me.”
Key spoke about the “layered” music of that time, compared to the brighter show tunes of an earlier generation. “It reflects the era in which they were written,” he said, “the same way the first season reflects the area in which it was written.”
Paul promised bigger things for Cameron’s Jenny character in the second season. “I thought we underused Dove and her amazing talents in the first season, so I really wanted to put her front and center in this season,” he said.
Cameron, who made her name on Disney Channel’s Liv and Maddie, relished the opportunity. “In general, I don’t get to play darker characters as often as I would like,” she said, “and I think that Cinco did this really amazing thing for me, which was he created this character that was so manic and so full of that kind of Sally Bowles [Cabaret], madcap, chattery thing that was mostly used as a device to distract herself from her trauma and her pain, and then he gave me this incredible gift of this amazing backstory and all of this humanity underneath this character, like Sally Bowles has.”
A review in A.V. Club said: “If this all sounds like the show’s comedy comes from inside jokes and musical references, well, yes, a lot of it does. But luckily, Schmigadoon! doesn’t take itself too seriously, which adds to its charm and helps bring in the non-theater kids who might not get this kicker: Leave your fields to flower, leave your cheese to sour and join us in the wonderful and whimsical world of Schmicago.”
