Schmigadoon!

Musicals have been ripe for parody since their inception and maturation in the early 20th century. There’s something about their rich oleo of artistic elements—music, singing, dance, writing, and design—suggesting that each of these elements should be simplified in order to blend properly with the others. The melodies and singing should be unadorned. The colors should be plain, and bright. The stories should be coherent with unambiguous conclusions. All entertaining and fun and easily digestible. And this simplification, which was very complex to achieve, seems to be the thing that many people complained about musicals, that they seemed puerile and mostly for kids, not adults. Hence, the endless spoofs and parodies.

And recently, we’ve had a wave of these parodies, Something Rotten on stage, My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend streaming, and now Schmigadoon!.

But Schmigadoon! is something more than a parody. It’s an homage, using the writing style of some familiar musicals to make a very modern point about how to build a relationship. The crafting and presentation of the “parody” songs is of the highest quality, comparable to the quality of the originals. It’s bright, funny, pointed, and perfectly appropriate for the adults we all pretend to be.

The series, written, composed and developed by Cinco Paul, appeared to my delight in 2021, and now there’s to be Season 2, Schmicago, which promises a sexier (and perhaps darker) approach.

Cinco Paul has joined my ward, the Riverside Park Ward, in NYC. Here’s my conversation with him last Sunday:

D.: So, Schmicago.

CP: Yes!

D.: When’s it happening?

CP: April 5, AppleTV+

D: Will there be another season after that?

CP: I’m not at liberty to say. But I have MOVED here, if that tells you anything. (Smiles.)

It tells me, there’s great stuff ahead. – David Fletcher (Schmigadoon! season one is currently on AppleTV+, and season two premieres on the same streaming platform, April 5, 2023.)