“This is a joy bomb!” exclaims Christopher Gattelli. “You can’t stop smiling and laughing while you’re watching this show!”

That show is Schmigadoon! Not the streaming version that still resides in two glorious seasons on Apple TV+, but a brand-new stage adaptation of the first season of the romantic comedy that finds a couple struggling to regain the love in their relationship, suddenly trapped inside a musical where corn puddin’ is the breakfast du jour. The show makes its World Premiere this weekend as part of the Kennedy Center’s consistently magnificent Broadway Center Stage series.

Gattelli, who created the choreography for both seasons of the series and who is currently represented on Broadway as the director of the smash musical Death Becomes Her, is the stage version’s director-choreographer. He and Schmigadoon! creator Cinco Paul, also the composer of the show’s jaw-dropping musical homages, have graciously set aside an hour to discuss forging this new creation for the residents of Washington, D.C.

“We’re putting something out there that people are going to come in for two and a half hours and just be in heaven,” Gattelli continues. “These past weeks in rehearsal, I didn’t want them to end because they’re just so much fun. It’s this really great, special piece.”

“I know it sounds super corny,” Paul, who rarely stops smiling, chimes in, “but the show is all about joy. It’s hopeful, and it’s about change. It’s about the potential for us all to be better than we are and all those corny things. It is the joy that I get from Singin’ in the Rain or Sound of Music or any of these musicals that I love.”

As is always the case with a Broadway Center Stage production, the pace has been breakneck. From start to full opening night in roughly two weeks. So far, Broadway Center Stage, which launched in 2018 and has focused on revivals, has been a flawless endeavor for the Kennedy Center, a peak of sustained theatrical perfection. Schmigadoon! is its first attempt at mounting a production from scratch.

“It’s always been a goal of mine, but it had to be the right moment with the right show,” says Jeffrey Finn, Artistic Director and Executive Producer of Broadway Center Stage. “The mission of the series, when I originally conceived it, was to feature really popular titles — revivals — exclusively with Broadway creative teams, directors, choreographers, designers, and Broadway stars — A-plus casts — only for D.C. audiences here at the Kennedy Center. But I’ve always had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to do a World Premiere.

“It’s quite exciting what they’ve done to change and revise the show because, obviously, this is not episodic television on stage,” he continues. “This is, without a doubt, a new stage musical that they’ve translated.”

Paul, Gattelli, and Finn praise to the rafters the show’s powerhouse cast of musical theater A-Listers, including Alex Brightman, Sara Chase, Kevin Del Aguila, Javier Muñoz, Brad Oscar, Emily Skinner, Ryan Vasquez, and Ann Harada, reprising her role from the TV series as the mayor’s wife, Florence Menlove.

“To have this whole plot happen in real-time is so exciting,” says Harada brightly during an early morning phone call. “What I’m really excited to show audiences is that ‘Look, this material works as an actual musical!’ On TV, every episode is 30 minutes long, so you break it up. But you can’t on stage. To have these amazing numbers coming at you, one after the other, is both overwhelming and wonderful!”

“I just marvel at what pros can do when you put them all together in a room,” adds Brad Oscar, who plays Mayor Menlove, a character who has a personal revelation over the course of the musical. “But you have to have the material, right? ‘If it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage.’ And we have solid, smart material here. It is, in so many ways, the kind of material that brought us all to musical theater in the first place. We all grew up falling in love with some of these shows from the Golden Age.”

That Golden Age encompasses time-tested treasures like Oklahoma, The Sound of Music, The Music Man, and Brigadoon, which serves as the core of the show’s playful premise. All are given a gentle lampooning by composer Paul, who skillfully threads the needle of fashioning something fresh out of well-worn cloth.

“The whole process has been a joy,” says Finn, bringing up the word that seems to be infused within every person bringing Schmigadoon! to life. “The entire process for me of working with Cinco and Chris and this incredible cast, and the entire team, has literally just been a joy — and that is not that common. It’s hard creating theater. It’s hard creating something brand new. And it’s been a joyous collaboration process because of what the core and heart of this material is. We’re all so excited just to see it come to life.”

METRO WEEKLY: Schmigadoon! ran for two seasons on Apple TV+. A third season did not happen, sadly, to everyone’s dismay. Then, Suddenly, in early 2024, we get news that it’s going to be reborn on stage at the Kennedy Center as part of the Broadway Center Stage series. And, believe me, when this was announced, it was the absolute buzz. So let’s talk about that first. How did that come to be?

CINCO PAUL: It initially came from my desire to have high schools do it. I really thought it would be fun to have a stage version that high schools could license and do. I love high school musical theater so much. And so that was the initial goal. I had some free time during the writer’s strike — I wasn’t writing for TV or film — and I thought, “Okay, this is a good time. Let me see if I can do this.” And so I did an adaptation, my first pass at it. And then I got it to Broadway Video, Lorne Michaels’ company, who produced the TV show. And they got excited beyond the idea of doing it for high schools. They thought that this maybe could have a life bigger than that. Although what’s bigger than every high school in the country doing your show? And it went from there. We did a reading, I can’t remember the dates. I’m very fuzzy on dates.

CHRISTOPHER GATTELLI: It was November, a year and a half ago, in 2023.

CINCO: Then Broadway Video started reaching out to people. And they reached out to the Kennedy Center and asked, “Would you be interested in doing this?” And surprise, surprise, they said yes. Which is interesting because they’ve never done a new musical. But Schmigadoon! is an old new musical because it feels like a Golden Age musical. So I think that’s why it made sense for them.

MW: I was curious why you chose season one rather than season two. But hearing the high school thing, it actually makes sense. A high school would probably be more inclined to do season one because of its callback to the older musicals and because it has a somewhat less grisly plot.

CINCO: Yes, that’s true. But I’ve heard of so many high schools doing Cabaret and Chicago and Sweeney. But yeah, to quote The Sound of Music, “Let’s start at the very beginning. A very good place to start.” So it made sense to me, let’s go for season one first.

MW: Chris, how did you get involved?

CHRISTOPHER: Cinco reached out and said that this was happening, and because of my connection and our relationship, he asked if I wanted to take the full helm. I was obviously so thrilled to be asked and so happy to be here.

MW: You had done the choreography on both seasons of the show so you already knew the material well enough to step in.

CHRISTOPHER: And that’s what felt really great — to have the most amazing first pass at something ever. To actually construct all of these numbers and to really get to know the world and the tone and the characters. And so to then transfer it to the stage just felt, I don’t know, just very natural and familiar and fun. It’s always a joy to be in this world, for sure.

CINCO: There was never any question that Chris is the one to direct this. We’d been in the trenches together for two seasons. I trust him. I know he’s going to make something great. I just know it. So I didn’t have to worry about that.

MW: Schmigadoon! really taps into an admiration for the musical theater art form and, at the same time, lovingly lampoons it. What was the purpose of the show for you, Cinco?

CINCO: The purpose was always to make the thing that I would want to see myself. The thing of, “Boy, I wish there was a show about people stuck in a musical!” And so then you write one. On the first day of the [show’s] writer’s room, I said, “This all has to come from a place of love. We’re all here. We love these musicals and we’re going to acknowledge that sometimes they’re stupid, sometimes they’re problematic, all these sorts of things. Absolutely. But it all has to come from a place of enormous affection.” And I think when I first met with Chris, it felt like he felt the same way.

MW: One thing about the television show is, of course, you have the ability to edit. You have the ability to control what the viewer is looking at during any given moment. And in that first season, there are a lot of in-your-face close-ups. You can’t do that on stage. So how have you adapted and reshaped what we’re about to see? What have been the challenges?

CINCO: Well, you really hit the nail on the head. That was the flaw of my first draft for the stage production — I hewed too closely to the TV show. There was a lot of intercutting that you just can’t do on stage. Stage is a different art form, a different medium. It has a different rhythm to it and a different feel.

And so my second draft addressed that issue. I took a hard look at some of these Golden Age musicals. In Oklahoma, the entire first act takes place in one location. It doesn’t move around. And so I looked at finding ways to stay in locations longer and to do more in one place without having to do all that intercutting. I’m sure Chris has a similar challenge when he choreographs for the camera versus the stage.

CHRISTOPHER: Oh, for sure. Even on the series, all of the choreography — I can name you every choreographer that I modeled every single step after — was patchwork. It was like, “This is Onna White, this is Agnes [de Mille], this is Jerome Robbins, this is Richard d’Alton.” It was like paying homage to my heroes, yet through a form that I love, to make people laugh. So it was great to be able to do both. It’s a dream.

MW: The show’s two seasons take you through the history of musical theater, from a certain point to a certain point. And what’s interesting to me is the shift from season one to season two, we see the way darkness encroached upon Broadway and came into play. You guys captured that vibe brilliantly.

CINCO: There was so much darkness in the world that it had to find its way to the stage eventually. And it did in that era. Yeah, I think someone from the cast once said to me, I think it was Kristin Chenoweth, “They’re going to teach Schmigadoon! in school someday. Teachers will use this to teach their kids about the history of musical theater.” And in some ways you can, because everybody involved in the show knows the form very well and we’ve studied it. And so, like Chris said, I can point you to all the different influences on every single song. And I had to for legal reasons also.

MW: Did the show ever hit legal snags? Were there ever any lawsuits raised over similarities in the songs to existing material?

CINCO: No, nothing. There were positive feelings towards the show, but also I was careful. I think one of the magic tricks that the orchestrators and arrangements of the whole music team reworked is it sounds closer to the original than it really is.

It tricks your ear sometimes into thinking it’s closer than it is.

MW: That’s fascinating. For example, you think you hear “Oklahoma” in the opening “Schmigadoon” number, but it is just an illusion.

CINCO: Yeah, exactly.

MW: Audiences who love the TV show will come with an expectation that it will be faithful to it. But you are in a different format. How are you addressing that?

CHRISTOPHER: Coming to see the stage show, you’re seeing people with all of those talents and skills in your face — live. That’s what I think is going to be so exciting about this. And you’re watching it in the proper span of a musical. You don’t get the breaks after a half hour to wonder what’s going to happen next. It goes in the way the musical is built and flows. Cinco has managed to craft it and rework it so it feels like a true Broadway musical structure. It just boggles my mind still that it’s working backward.

CINCO: I would say the TV show is always there [on Apple TV+]. If that’s what you want to watch, you should watch it. I encourage people to watch it again and again! But this is something different, and it had to be something different. And there’s nothing more disappointing to me than seeing a musical based on a movie that’s just so slavishly faithful to it that there are no surprises to the point of “Why are they even doing this?”

It is interesting, but a couple of weeks ago, I came to a realization that this is the version I would have written before the TV show. If I had decided this should be a stage musical first, this is what I would have written. I hadn’t really expected that, but I think that is what this is.

MW: What a wild revelation to have.

CINCO: Yeah.

MW: And what a rare gift that is to be able to have that revelation as a writer, to be able to move in a different creative direction with one of your properties.

CINCO: I’ve said it many times, but I had the idea for Schmigadoon! thirty years ago, and I didn’t know what to do with it because I thought, “Is it a stage musical? Is it a movie?” Back then, I never thought it was a TV show. If I’d decided, “Okay, I’m going to write a musical for the stage,” this is what it would’ve been.

MW: How has the breakneck pace for this been? You have only two weeks to mount a full production from scratch. How has that been, this mad rush?

CHRISTOPHER: To be honest, I was very nervous before we started rehearsals because it is a big show. It’s a full two-act show with a lot of songs and numbers. And I was like, “How are we going to do this?” And I’m telling you, these are Broadway pros. They came in with their lines learned. And they are so excited to be a part of this. Every single person in the cast, you can tell they really want to be here, and they really want to show up for it in a way that makes everyone proud.

I don’t want the rehearsals to end because everyone is just having a great time creating this. And the cool thing is to have the writer in the room with you. With a lot of the revivals, you can’t do that, so you can’t change things. But because this is still new —

CINCO: And I’m alive. I’m still alive.

CHRISTOPHER: — I could just turn to Cinco and go, “What if we did this?” And he’s like, “Maybe not, but maybe this.” Because it’s still evolving — it’s an evolving piece. So we just keep making it better and better through the process.

CINCO: Someone can fact-check me on this, but I can’t imagine any other new musical premiered to this schedule.

CHRISTOPHER: It doesn’t happen.

CINCO: It just does not happen. But it is happening, and no one’s going to even know it. Everyone’s going to assume we had months of rehearsal because these people are so good.

CHRISTOPHER: Our ensemble is not even an ensemble. It’s a cast of all-stars. They have more Broadway credits put together than… It’s nuts, but it’s because they’re the best. Everyone is the best of the best.

MW: There was speculation when we first heard that it was coming — I know I was guilty of it — that maybe you’d get the original TV series cast. But I imagine the scheduling of that would be so difficult. You did get one, though!

CINCO: We got Ann! She’s so wonderful. Love Ann so much.

MW: And you got Brad Oscar and Alex Brightman.

CINCO: It is crazy the cast that we got. And it is interesting: before the TV show was even made, when we just had scripts, we did a reading. And Brad played the mayor in that reading. Emily played Mildred Layton in that reading. Javier Muñoz played Doc Lopez in one of those readings. It has been so nice to bring them back because of what they did, they were the first people to touch those songs and those lines. So it’s really nice to have them be part of this production.

MW: I know you’re a gay man, Christopher. And I know you’re not a gay man, Cinco. I’m going to ask you a gay question, though, because we’re a gay magazine.

CINCO: [Laughs.] I’ll do my best.

MW: In our community, the knee-jerk stereotype is that gay men love musicals. In fact, it’s really not a stereotype because most of my friends, most of the gay people I know, adore Broadway musicals. So my question is, why do gay men love musicals so much?

CHRISTOPHER: That’s a great question. I don’t know. Maybe because things are heightened, and it’s slightly larger than life that people break out into song? Maybe it’s the drama or the over-the-topness? I don’t know. I don’t know.

MW: Well, why did you love musicals?

CHRISTOPHER: I loved the dancing. Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. I would just put those on all the time just to watch. Something about watching them do that, especially the Gene Kelly and Singin’ in the Rain sequence. It’s so beautiful. And I didn’t even know why when I was younger, but I loved it.

CINCO: I’ll say that my love of musicals caused my conservative parents a lot of concerns. There were a lot of questions, like, “Do you find her attractive? Do you think she’s pretty?” I certainly surprised people over the years. [Laughs.]

But I think there’s a freeness to musicals that I think generations of gay men probably long for. And probably that was part of it, that it was just like, “Oh, I wish I could be this free. I wish I were allowed to be who I really am,” which is part of the journey in our show for the mayor’s character. But I don’t know. I’m probably going to get in trouble if I try to say what is behind it. But that feels to me right. And I think that’s why people of all stripes, who feel like they haven’t been able to completely live their full life, love musicals — because they just wish they could be that free. I think I’ve felt that at times in my life, too like, “Ah, I wish I had that courage. I wish I could just sing and dance in public and proclaim my love to someone in song.”

MW: Final question. What is the best thing about having Schmigadoon! play for the first time ever in history here in the nation’s capital, at this turbulent political moment, at the Kennedy Center?

CHRISTOPHER: Well, I think the city needs it right now. I think us coming in here with this lovefest, this joyful show, is a beautiful thing at the moment.

CINCO: Yeah. I’d say there’s a lot of tribulation and strife in the world right now, and we need all the hope and love we can get. And so I think people who come will feel that, will be able to lose themselves in Schmigadoon!.

MW: Would you like President Trump to come?

CINCO: Sure. [Laughs.] I don’t know.

CHRISTOPHER: No comment.

CINCO: Well, he might love the song “Tribulation.” That’ll be his favorite number. He’ll be like, “Why do they think Mildred’s the villain?”

Schmigadoon! runs through Feb. 9 in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. Tickets are $99 to $315. Visit www.Kennedy-Center.org.

Follow Cinco Paul on X at @cincopedia and the Kennedy Center at @kencen.

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