Schmigadoon! Successfully Sings Its Way from Screen to Stage

“Who wants corn puddin’? We want corn puddin’!” cry the deliriously upbeat residents of the titular town in Schmigadoon! It’s a corny refrain to a corny song that marks a narrative fork in the road for this musical’s main characters. Faced with the overbearing spectacle of an all-singing, all-dancing band of townsfolk, cynical everyman Josh Skinner (Alex Brightman) stays rooted to his chair, refusing to indulge. His dissatisfied partner, Melissa Gimble (Sara Chase), meanwhile, decides she does want corn puddin’, and she’s willing to sing for it. From this point on, their paths will diverge, possibly forever. 

The sequence encapsulates dueling sensibilities in Schmigadoon!, Cinco Paul’s world-premiere homage to Golden Age musicals, based on his Apple TV+ show of the same name. On one end, an arch send-up of Rodgers and Hammerstein et al. that only a true fan could produce; on the other, a politically enlightened but often cynical outlook that resists the old-timey charm of yesteryear. It’s a tension that helped make the streaming show a cult hit, and it’s animating a raucous production that (more or less) brings the show to where it belongs: on a stage, in this case the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater.

Josh and Melissa are already in a troubled relationship when they cross a bridge into Schmigadoon, a pastel-hued musical realm actualized in designs by Scott Pask (sets) and Linda Cho (costumes) and lit for warm, hazy nostalgia by Jen Schriever. The town is populated with cheery citizens so out of time that Melissa mistakes them for historical reenactors a la Colonial Williamsburg. When their hosts’ song and dance charms wear off, Josh and Melissa attempt to escape. By way of a leprechaun (Kevin Del Aguila), they learn that true love alone will see them back across the bridge to their real life. When they find they cannot cross over together, the only logical conclusion is that theirs is not true love at all. If they want to leave, they’ll have to find the real deal in Schmigadoon.

As writer, composer, and lyricist, Paul unabashedly flexes his command of the classics in building his world. Brigadoon, Oklahoma!, The Sound of Music, The Music Man: They’re all in there. In the hands of a lesser creator, it would be good fun for Broadway babies and not much else, but Paul’s gift for pastiche—something that is more than spoofery, but a capacity to master the form while drawing out its complexities and contradictions—is ably met by a stellar ensemble under the accomplished leadership of director-choreographer Christopher Gattelli. Anchoring the venture are Brightman and Chase, the former a reliable source of laughs thanks to his understated delivery, the latter possessed of wit and charisma that makes her both an apt feminist commentator and game to try Schmigadoon on for size. 

It’s a credit to Brightman and Chase that they are never overpowered by a powerhouse lineup of kooky Schmigadoon denizens. In his search for true love on the quick, Josh is ensnared by young Betsy McDonald (McKenzie Kurtz), a cartoonishly coquettish farmer’s daughter whose refrain that she’s “Not That Kinda Gal” is laced with innuendo. He then turns his attention to charming schoolmarm Emma Tate (Isabelle McCalla), who seamlessly shifts from instructing her students—clearly adults, as Josh points out—into the thrilling tap number “With All of Your Heart” like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Melissa, meanwhile, is courted first by Danny Bailey (Ryan Vasquez), a rakish carny who proclaims “You Can’t Tame Me,” then by the uptight and upstanding Doc Lopez (Javier Muñoz), who woos her with the romantic “Suddenly” and its pledges of instant devotion. 

While many residents of Schmigadoon are taken by the pair of outsiders, proto-fascist biddy Mildred Layton (Emily Skinner) sees the threat they pose to her world order. She plots to usher the genial but repressed Mayor Menlove (Brad Oscar) out of power, all while henpecking her own repressed husband, Reverend Layton (Del Aguila), and condescending to the Mayor’s dopey wife, Florence (Ann Harada, the lone holdover from the TV show). While the ironic critique of Schmigadoon’s conservatism is so obvious as to be itself outdated, it does give the cast a chance to wink at a range of old-school archetypes. Emboldened by Paul’s witty book and Gattelli’s steady hand, each and every one has understood the assignment: play that archetype just a notch over-the-top, and the laughs will follow.

The artistry on display is such that you needn’t know every lyric in the Broadway canon to appreciate Schmigadoon! However, binging at least the first season of the show (or both, like yours truly) will certainly flesh out your experience, at least as far as Josh and Melissa’s troubled relationship is concerned. The pair arrive at the same place onstage as they do on screen, but the path is patchier, a consequence of condensing hours of television into a single evening. This at times undermines an apt lesson: that the simplicity of “the good ol’ days” is seductive, yes, but also contrived. After all, as Melissa herself notes, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classics are riddled with “morally adrift narcissists who need to change,” not to mention straight-up death. Love has always been more complicated than any song and dance can express—though affecting numbers like “You Make Me Wanna Sing” sure come close.

Mercifully, Schmigadoon! the stage show is more than a highlight reel of Schmigadoon! the TV show. It brings what works best on screen into the theater, where every virtuoso performance is cheered and every bit of ironic schtick has a chance to tickle your neighbor, if not yourself. That alone makes it a success for Paul and for the Kennedy Center’s Broadway Center Stage program, marking its first ever world premiere. Do not be surprised if this is the first of many such premieres—or if Schmigadoon! can soon be discovered in New York. 

Schmigadoon! with books, music, and lyrics by Cinco Paul and directed and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, runs through Feb. 9 at the Kennedy Center. kennedy-center.org. $99–$315.