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Barry Sonnenfeld Explains How SCHMIGADOON! Turned Him Into a Broadway Believer
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Oct 26, 2022
Ever wish you could wake up and find yourself in a musical? Starting tomorrow, you can live the dream with Apple TV+'s new series, Schmigadoon!- a parody of iconic Golden Age musicals. Tune in tomorrow, July 16, to watch the premier and find out more about the project from series director Barry Sonnenfeld in our exclusive interview!
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. The latest from Apple TV Plus is Shmigadoon, the six-episode musical series that is a parody of the iconic Golden Age musicals
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It features a stellar, star-studied cast of Broadway favorites and begins streaming globally on Apple TV Plus on Friday, July 16th
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And I caught up with the cast and creatives to talk about what it was like working on the magical Shmigadoon
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Corn pudding. What's that? What? Are you trying to tell me that you've never heard of corn pudding
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She's never heard of corn pudding! Oh no. It's a song. You just started another song
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Corn putton, corn pudding, corn putton, corn puttwin, corn puttwin, corn pudding
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Can we opt out of this? My gal loves corn pudding. She eats it constantly
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Sometimes I get to wondering, does she love to love. love it more than me
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Dershi love it more than me. My guy loves corn pudding. I've got the rest of pee
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So if he wants my pudding, he'll have to marry me. Oh, he'll have to marry me
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You put the corn in the pudding and the pudding in the bowl. You put the bowl in her belly because it's good for the soul
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You put the corn in the pudding and the pudding in the bowl. You put the bowl in her belly because it's good for the sword
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Who wants corn pudding? We want corn pudding. Who wants corn pudding
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We want corn pudding. First, I have starting off here, Shnigadoon is spectacular
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Just so you know that. Well, thanks. It was fun making it
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How proud are you of this show? I'm really proud of it because I had no joy or interest in musical theater
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as filmed. My parents used to invest. Now, do you know a lot about Broadway musicals, Richard
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Oh, yes. I know everything about them. I'm Broadway World. Trust me. I was brought up on that
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Okay. Let's see if I can stump you. My parents, and we would really have electricity
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we could really pay our rent, but they would invest in Broadway shows. My dad was a lighting
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salesman for Century Lighting, so he knew Phil Rose and all these other guys. But my parents would
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invest in Broadway musicals like Bravo Giovanni did you ever yes Michelle Lee yes I did Okay so Bravo Giovanni or Pearly Victorious Not the next one not the pearly version that was successful
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But before that, there was a four-hour version called Pearly Victorious. Anyway, so I was not a musical theater guy, but I studied how they were shot and it turned
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are pretty great. Okay, because I want to ask you, during the process of shooting Schmigadoon
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when did you actually become a big musical theater fan? There was a time during that
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Wasn't there for you? Well, you know what? Actually, the first time was in pre-production
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We had a table read where we read, where the producers sit, the network sits
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and listen to every script read, and we have all the actors lined up
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and there was COVID so there were glass partitions and we're reading and it's funny it's funny
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and then we get to episode four or five and Kristen Chenoweth
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has memorized her four minute song and is doing a performance there at the table read
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and she finished and she got a standing ovation from the room
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and at that moment I thought this could work and then it turns out everyone can sing, you know, everyone can dance
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You know, Jane Krakowski's number, for her to do a dance inside of a two-seater Morgan
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that is brilliant. How did she pull that off? Just amazing, the dancing and singing and acting from this cast
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Yeah. So when you were in pre-production, did you go back to look at like the glorious musicals of like MGM and 20th Century Fox
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because the feel of this show is so wonderful. Like, what did you look at
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You know what? I looked at very, the truth is, the more I looked at some of these shows
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the more I would complain to Cinco. Because Cinco knows every one of those
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and I would say, well, I watched Carousel last night. You can't tell me that's good choreography
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And he goes, no, I think it's really good. I said, oh, no, we can do so much better
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And then, you know, the one I thought we couldn't do better than was singing in the rain
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That one was a tough one. But you know Chris Cotelli did such a fantastic job as a choreographer and we worked very closely together He would videotape well not tape but he would use his iPhone to shoot rehearsals and then Sinkoven I would then at night look at rehearsals
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and I would make suggestions, don't do that, track here, bring his answers closer together, don't have him turn, have him
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And then over those weeks, we kept refining it, refining it, and refining it
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so that when we were on the set, we finished every song and dance number ahead of schedule
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If we would have a day and a half, we do it in a day, because we had feed it all out ahead of time
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And Chris was so good. And the songs were so wonderful that Sinko wrote that it was really easy
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You have hired some of the very best. I mean, Christopher Citelli has been a friend
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I knew him as a dancer before he became a Tony Award-winning choreographer
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The team you put together for the Shnigadoon is so incredible. Would you share one of your most favorite
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favorite moments on the set of Shnigajun. What was it for you, Barry
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We talked about it, but my favorite moment was Kristen Chenowitz having to do a four-minute
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song and dance number without a single cut that ended with two big physical effects. A huge
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banner has to come down, and then all these balloons have to drop. And if Kristen had been perfect
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until the last three seconds, but the banner didn't go down. We'd have to go back to the beginning
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because there was nowhere to cut into the song. The whole thesis was one continuous take
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So for me, I wept because I've worked with Kristen a lot
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She was an RV, which I directed with Robin Williams in 2006
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pushing daisies, several other things. We have another project we're going to do together next year
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So the truth is that moment was so special for me because I didn't want to have to be on take 22
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and Chenoweth nailed it on take three. And we knew we had it
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Well, that's what I think. You hired the very best of Broadway. They're used to doing it up in one
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It's like, here's your shot. This is what you have. So just, you know, we have to get this done
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That's right. And let me say one last thing. And that's what makes it work
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What makes it work is because you have such great singers and dancers. cutting, editing is the enemy of dance
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You know what? When it's working, you want Aaron Vett to do that song and dance in one
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And Chris has so many great things he does with actors hands and acting out and chickens Anyway it great because we have such great actors
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So my final question is, what do you hope audiences take away? I mean, we so need Shmigadoon right now
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What do you hope they walk away with after watching this incredible series? I want them to be entertained
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I want them to see great acting. It's lovely. It's emotional. It's silly
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It's funny. It works for 12-year-olds, and it works for 80-year-olds. And you don't, listen, I got to say this to everyone out there
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If I could enjoy watching Shmigadoon, anyone can because I don't like musical theater
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And I love this show. Leave me alone. All I said is we should bail on the hike
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I didn't mean us in general. I just meant the height. You don't want to make a relationship better
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A relationship is fine. He's bad. Church boss? Shmigadoon? Welcome to our little town
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Where friends are all you meet Must be something they do for tourists
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Hey there Pete Can we go now? Already? What? We can't leave
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It's like magic We're in an actual musical Please God now Everybody Shmoo
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They said we're only here till we've found true love. Do you think this is true, huh
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What is that even me? Who knows what Shmigadoon thinks is true love? Which of you ladies wants to cross this bridge with me
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You want to try with other people? What a beautiful couple you two may
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Stop it. You are stunning. Compared to you, I have a barefoot mess
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Ah! Let's go find your shoes, shall we? And there's hope for all, whether great or small
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there's no crawls or roll, bring your bad ass out. We're stuck here forever
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You're just going to give up? We're smart. We found our way out of IKEA. We'll find a way out of here
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Ladies, can I get a cackle? Oh, C-H-H-M-I-T-A-B-O-O-O-F. We're in a musical, okay
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Nobody gets killed in a musical, except Oklahoma. And Carousel. And South Pacific
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Oh, hello, West Side Story. All the Musicals
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