It’s time for Tonys … and for Schmiga-streaming

For the geographically disadvantaged (that’s most of us), the annual Tony telecast is important.
It shows us the joy of Broadway. It shows what we’d savor if we had the time … and the money … and a proximity to New York.
We don’t, of course, so we catch the Tonys, at 8 p.m. ET Sunday (June 7) on CBS. In a three-hour stretch, we’ll see lots of awards, get a few laughs … and see production numbers from at least nine musicals.
And this year, there’s a bonus: We can stream (via Apple) “Schmigadoon” (shown here)m which a front-runner is based on.
On stage, “Schmigadoon” has 12 Tony nominations, including best musical. As Broadway veteran Tommy Tune wrote recently: “Here is a new musical with an old Broadway soul: full of melody, mischief, romance and the kind of theatrical joy that we need right now.”
That’s what the Apple version delivered at another joy-deprived time, during the pandemic. In the summer of 2021, it gave us a gem.
Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key played New York doctors whose lives and romance had frazzled. They went on a hike, got lost … and wandered into a town where everyone behaved like ’40s or ’50s musicals.
There were all the stock characters — the preacher and his stern wife, the sweet schoolmarm, the handsome bad-boy type, the farmer’s flirty daughter, the countess and more. Played by top talent — Arianna DuBose (just before her “West Side Story” movie triumph), Aaron Tveit, Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming, Dove Cameron, Martin Short and more, they had it both ways:
Yes, this sort of satirized old musicals. But the songs also worked on their own; like those doctors, we were happy to wander into this land.
This was the work of Cinco Paul and Ken Durio, two guys best-known for writing family films — the “Despicable Me” ones and others, including the clever “Hop” and “Secret Lives of Pets.” They split amicably when “Schmigadoon” became a six-part series.
Paul stuck around for a second season, dubbed “Schmicago.” It was as brilliant as the first, but less fun because it satirized a darker era.
Then Paul crafted the stage musical; the surge of Tony nominations came out on his 62nd birthday. (That’s May 5; Paul isn’t Mexican, but he was born on the Cinco de Mayo holiday, thus being named “Cinco.”)
Now “Schmigadoon” will have a production number at the Tonycast. So will the other best-musical nominees — “Titanique” (a “Titanic” take-off that tied “Schmigadoon” with 12 nominations), “The Lost Boys” and “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York).” Other numbers will be from the musical-revival nominees — “Cats,” “Ragtime” and “Rocky Horror” — and at least two more: the original cast of “Book of Mormon” and a 30th-anniversary celebration of “Chicago.”
That should make Paul feel at home. After all, he once satirized “Chicago” … and, just like the “Book of Mormon” guys, he went on an overseas mission for the Church of Latter Day Saints.
And many of the shows reflect what Tune wrote.
He’s 87, a former choreographer, dancer and actor who won 10 Tonys. He’s not connected to “Schmigadoon,” but he wrote a rave that became a full-page ad in the New York Times. It starts:
“In this city, where the world comes rushing at you all at onece, the Broadway musical does something miraculous: It gathers all that noise, all that longing, all that heartbreak and hope, and turns it into song. It reminds us that feeling deeply is not foolish. That romance is not naive. That joy, properly made, can be as rigorous as any tragedy.”
And for those of us geographically removed from Broadway? There’s “Schmigadoon” on Apple, the Tonys on CBS and samples of musical joy.