Schmigatony

As readers here likely recall, I was and am an extremely big admirer of the two Schmigadoon series that was made for Apple TV+.  (For accuracy's sake, the second series was titled Schmicago.)  Both were created fully – the script, music and lyrics – by Cinco Paul, who co-wrote the movies Despicable Me 1,2 and 3; The Secret Life of Pets 1 & 2, The Lorax, Horton Hears a Who!, The Santa Clause 2 and many more.  He’d prepared a third Schmigadoon series (he may even have written the whole thing, I don't recall), but Apple TV+ cancelled the show, and it never got made.

So, Schmigadoon was over and done.

Except – it wasn’t.  The first series was developed into a stage show, which had a very successful, limited run in Washington, D.C.  So successful that they transferred it to Broadway, for a limited run.  That limited run has now been extended for a second time – to run (at least) through the end of the year.  That’s because it not only got great reviews, but last Sunday, the show won four Tony Awards, including Best Musical.  Paul himself won two Tonys – for Best Score and Best Book.  The four Tony was for orchestrations, won by Doug Besterman and Mike Morris.

The only question now, I think, is if Apple TV+ will have an “Ooops!” moment and build on the attention and success of the stage show and bring back Season Three.  And if not them, might some other streaming service jump in. 

Here’s from the Tonys broadcast is how they adapted the opening number for the stage production -- a boisterous homage to the song "Oklahoma!"...with a few call backs to other musicals thrown in.

For those who don’t know the show, it’s a deeply affectionate (and very funny) parody of Broadway musicals from the Golden Age – the 1950s and early 1960s.  (Schmicago dealt with the next generation of musicals.)  The premise that puts the story in motion is a couple of hikers get lost in the forest and come upon a town (which is itself a parody of Brigadoon) where everyone signs and acts just as if they were in a musical.  The woman loves musicals, the man hates them.  But they’re unable to leave the town of Schmigadoon because a leprechaun (a shout out to Finan's Rainbow) tells them they must first learn some life lesson.

Curtain up!