Schmigadoon!, a musical written by musical fans for musical fans, will likely delight the latter for as long as it’s around on Broadway, and in productions to come. Alex Brightman’s main character Dr. Josh Skinner, as his pained expression in the above photo attests, would beg to differ, uncomfortably thrust as he is into a magical place in which singing and dancing are the order of the day. Well, if anything has the capacity to transform a doubter into a devotee, Dr. Josh no exception, it would be this joyous musical gift package, skillfully crafted by author Cinco Paul and director-choreographer Christopher Gattelli.
Its provenance is television, a quite faithful adaptation of Paul and Gattelli’s six-episode Apple TV+ series from 2021. Stepping in at the Nederlander for the all-star TV cast of Broadway A-listers (including Ann Harada) are still more A-listers (including Ann Harada), and separately and together they seamlessly represent what Broadway professionalism can be. Who knows? Given this show and the healthy legs of Stranger Things: The First Shadow a few blocks north, the small screen could become a regular tryout stop for legit.
Title, setting, and gimmick are all a riff on Brigadoon, the Lerner and Loewe-created Scots village appearing for one day each century and stumbled upon by two emotionally damaged hikers. Today, Catskills hikers Dr. Josh and partner Dr. Melissa Gimble (Sara Chase) are wrestling with his commitment phobia, not to mention his antipathy to passion for musicals. He loved Singin’ in the Rain, he says, “until they started singing and dancing, and then I wanted them all to die…. People don’t just burst into song like that in real life.”
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★★★☆ review here.]
They do in Schmigadoon, though, where every locale is flats and backdrop – witty and colorful scenography courtesy Scott Pask – and each town notable is a lightly-observed clone of some Golden Age character. You’ll spot a faux Billy Bigelow (Max Clayton) and Ado Annie (McKenzie Kurtz) right away, not to mention The Music Man’s Marian Paroo (winsome Isabelle McCalla), Winthrop (a crowd-thrilling Ayaan Diop), and Eulalie McKecknie Shinn (Ana Gasteyer with perfectly calibrated villainy). There’s even a stiff-necked, whistle-blowing town doctor (Ivan Hernandez) with a strong resemblance to a certain Austrian captain.
All, along with the apple-cheeked, fresh-faced ensemble (Linda Cho’s costumes flatter one and all), break into musical numbers at the drop of a cue. The cavalcade of earworms is eye-poppingly lit by Donald Holder and carefully crafted by Paul to echo the memorable tunes of an earlier era. “What’s the Matter with Men?” evokes “Marry the Man Today,” “Tribulation” echoes “Ya Got Trouble,” and Kurtz shows herself to be a gal who cain’t not say no in one of several Oklahoma! callouts. A pointed Sondheim homage is inserted at just the right emotional moment.
There’s many a wink at the art form’s tropes and oddities to delight the aficionado. (Ever notice how often group numbers end in mass laughter even though nothing remotely funny has transpired? Josh does.) Yet one needn’t get the story and musical references, nor catch any of the Easter eggs planted within Doug Besterman & Mike Morris’s inspired orchestrations, to be captured by the spell of Schmigadoon!, thanks to a solid narrative – Josh and Melissa must find true love before they can return to their world – that allows Brightman and Chase to become the decided MVPs of this All-Star team. Chase, so memorable in support of The Great Gatsby, comes into her own here, more dazzled than puzzled by the town’s mysterious musical ambience, and determined to wrench McKinley-era morés into the present century. For his part, Brightman pivots 180 degrees away from the mania of Beetlejuice and School of Rock in his dry, droll resistance to the town’s charms; he’s the eye of the storm the story needs to keep from spiraling off into silly. Separately and together, the stars make us care about their transformation, and about the changes they in turn work on the magical town itself.
Schmigadoon! has chosen, or lucked into, just the right historical moment. Its roots are in the musicals of the 40’s and 50’s, written while the nation was seeking equilibrium in the face of the trauma of the Second World War. The shows that Paul has mined for inspiration, and that Gattelli re-creates straight from his heart, were beginning to become aware of the fissures of American life; tensions of racism, xenophobia, gender, and identity are all gently evoked here. But Golden Age Broadway was fueled first and foremost by hope. The promise that America could be better, that its people could be better, was baked into musical theater of its time, and now leavens this wonderful entertainment in an era when belief in the betterment of our country seems to be in short supply. We need it, and Schmigadoon! supplies it.
