“Schmigadoon!,” a knowing, and loving, musical theater satire that imagines a bickering couple stranded in an otherworldly town whose denizens keep bursting into song, won the Tony Award for best new musical.
The prize has traditionally been the most coveted Tony Award because it has often had the greatest box office impact, and “Schmigadoon!” could use the help — its sales have been soft, despite mostly positive reviews. (The show “is a blast,” the critic Elisabeth Vincentelli wrote in The New York Times.)
In a weak season for new musicals on Broadway, “Schmigadoon!” beat out its main competitor, “The Lost Boys,” a spectacle-heavy teen vampire musical, as well as the charming two-hander “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)” and the Celine Dion-spoofing comedy “Titaníque.”
“Schmigadoon!” is based on an Apple TV+ series; the name is an allusion to the midcentury musical “Brigadoon,” which was about two American tourists who happen upon a mysterious Scottish village that only appears once a century. In “Schmigadoon,” a couple on a retreat in an effort to repair their relationship gets trapped in a village filled with stock characters reminiscent of characters in Golden Age musicals, and they are prone to song-and-dance numbers that nod to classics from that era and beyond.
The book, music and lyrics were all written by Cinco Paul, one of the creators of the television series. It is directed and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli.
The show had one previous production, which was staged in Washington last year as part of the Broadway Center Stage program at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. That program did not survive as the Trump Administration took over the Kennedy Center.
“Schmigadoon!” opened April 20 at the Nederlander Theater, where it continues to run. The show is planning a North American tour starting next year in Baltimore, and has also reached a licensing deal that should eventually lead to community and school productions.
The Broadway run is being produced by Broadway Video (a company founded by Lorne Michaels, the “Saturday Night Live” creator who was a key producer of the “Schmigadoon!” television series), as well as No Guarantees Productions (founded by Christine Schwarzman). It was capitalized for $15 million, and it is not yet clear whether it will recoup those capitalization costs, although the Tony is likely to help.
