“I’ve been in love with musicals since I was really young,” confesses Cinco Paul, creator of Schmigadoon! on Apple TV+. “My mom used to play the cast recordings from Camelot, South Pacific, and My Fair Lady when I was a little kid. And then I remember seeing Singin’ in the Rain and thinking that it was the most magical thing I’d ever seen, particularly the Make Them Laugh, the Donald O’Connor number.”

There was something completely magical to Paul imagining people bursting into song while riding the transit system. He even stated that his goal is to “bring back the Hollywood musical back to life” in his application to film school.

Cinco Paul considers the language of musicals different than dialogue because it’s more personal and revealing. “They sing their feelings. They sing what’s in their hearts. It’s almost like having a voiceover without having to lean on a voiceover. It’s a nice tool to use to help us get to the heart of what a character is thinking and feeling and wanting.”

The second season of Schmigadoon! tracks our long-term couple Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) and Melissa (Cecily Strong) escaping to Schmicago to clear Josh’s name of a murder charge. It’s unclear whether they can ever return to their beloved town of Schmigadoon.

Paul wasn’t overly concerned with his new location for Josh and Melissa too closely rhyming with a well-known musical set in the roaring 20s. His main goal was to transfer the magic of Schmigadoon into Schmicago and expand his vision from a quaint small town into a big city. Cinco Paul admits that he borrowed a few story elements from Chicago the musical including Josh hiring a flashy lawyer renamed Bobbie Flanagan (Jane Krakowski) who dances and sings her way through a trial.

“The drawback of referencing a well-known musical could potentially be someone who thinks, ‘Oh, this is all just a straight Chicago parody,’ which it’s not. It’s a parody of every musical that came out in the 60s and 70s,” says Paul.

Cinco Paul cites the musicals which most influenced Schmigadoon! to be Pippin, Sweeney Todd, Cabaret, and Chicago. When Josh and Melissa enter a commune, there are subtle winks to Godspell, Hair and other hippie musicals too.

Schmicago is divided into three distinct districts. “There’s the roaring 20s city side based on Chicago, then there’s the hippie commune side which is based on Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, and and then there’s the Victorian England style side of town which is really mostly Sweeney Todd with a little bit of Oliver and Annie dashed in.”

Apart from Schmigadoon!, Cinco Paul has written on big budget studio films including The Lorax and Despicable Me. He doesn’t feel unsettled by writing in different formats. “I always feel like writing is writing, whether you’re writing for animation or live action. All the fundamental rules apply to story and character.” However, the screenwriter emphasizes that writing animated movies reinforces the value of clarity and simplicity in screenwriting. “You have limited space in these movies. So, you really had to drill down on what the characters wants are and what the stakes are.”

In addition to simplicity, Paul relishes the joy of visual gags that can organically be written in both musicals and animated films. “There are a lot of subtle visual gags throughout Schmigodoon! Sometimes, when my witty dialogue isn’t getting a laugh, a funny slapstick joke in the background would get a huge laugh. Realizing film is a visual medium, you’ve got to make sure you’re taking care of that when you’re writing any movie,” continues Paul.

Cinco Paul

Season one of Schmigadoon! built itself on re-establishing the fractured love of Melissa and Josh. Each had multiple romances throughout Schmigadoon! until they rediscovered each other. During season two, they’ve reunited, they’re trying to start a family, and now they’re trying to avoid a murder charge. The tone has shifted into a slightly darker one.

“I was really interested in season one telling a story about a couple that is together but struggling. So often in these romantic musical comedies, we see them meet for the first time, and it’s all about that dance,” elaborates Paul.

“By the end of season one, I feel like Josh and Melissa had kind of figured it out. I didn’t want season two to be with them in conflict about their relationship, breaking apart and exploring other partners. I really wanted them to be a team and they’re struggling as a team to find joy in the world.”

Who Are Josh And Melissa?

Cinco Paul loosely based Josh and Melissa’s relationship dynamics on his own decades-long marriage. “I think Josh is the cheerleader. He’s the optimist. He’s the one always trying to say, ‘We can do this. It’s gonna be okay,’ and Melissa is the more realistic one, right? She’s the voice of reason and the one more inclined to think things aren’t going to work out.”

Melissa is at a lower emotional tide and Josh constantly tries to raise her spirits as she yearns for Schmigadoon. “When they get to Schmicago, at some point, they switch roles. They find a little more of what the other person has brought to the relationship and they find that in themselves as well.”

“Something that we emphasized in the writers’ room a lot was that even though a lot of these characters are based on tropes and in some ways are heightened examples of real people, they need to own their trauma, their pain, and their struggles need to to be real. We need to write them like that.”

There is a real art to telling dark stories through the joyous, upbeat expression of song. “I always react to something that’s relentlessly dark as false because I don’t view the world that way. I think the world is a dichotomy. It’s really hard, it’s such a struggle, and there’s so much pain and sorrow. But then there is such happiness, joy, color and light. So, I think any work of art that’s really truthful and really reflecting life will reflect both,” muses Paul.

I’m remaking It’s A Wonderful Life in everything I do

The writer describes himself as a very optimistic person whose favorite movies have a great mix of darkness and light. With reference to the Frank Capra film, “If there’s no darkness then you don’t even comprehend what light is.”

Planning The Second Season of Schmigadoon!

Cinco Paul wrote many of the songs in Schmigadoon! while he was concurrently thinking about the story. He had already composed two or three songs before the writing began. The remaining songs were written during the writing. They  had originally planned around three songs per episode, but ended up with around six. When the writers’ room started, they hit the ground running. Paul had a solid outline of how he envisioned the second season. “It’s open enough that things change when the other writers have input, but I have an idea of the characters and how the stories are going to intertwine.” 

The writers’ room comprised Cinco Paul, Ken Daurio and four other writers. They map out the season and break stories for each episode. As they’re outlining, someone might suggest a suitable place for a song. “I knew I was gonna go into the  70s musicals, so the first thing I did was I dove into those. You see where the characters overlap, where certain characters are similar so that you can create composites.”

Josh Skinner (Keegan-Michael Key) and Melissa Gimble (Cecily Strong) Photo courtesy of Apple TV+

Betsy McDonough (Dove Cameron) is going to be a Sally Bowles character from Cabaret. Danny Bailey (Aaron Tveit) is going to be Jesus Christ Superstar, meets Pippin, meets Claude from Hair. Dooley Blight (Alan Cumming) and Mildred Layton (Kristen Chenoweth) are based on Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett in it..”

After noticing that many of these musicals were tragedies with unhappy endings, Paul worked backwards from a revised happier ending. “Let’s put Josh and Melissa on a path where they learn about happiness.

After the character list was assembled, the writers’ room would discuss their relationships and how to bring them all together around the central premise of Josh and Melissa stuck in Shmicago.

During the early weeks of the writers’ room convening, Cinco Paul asked everyone to make a list of ten things they’d like to see in the season. “Within a couple of weeks, we got into the nitty gritty and mapped out the six episodes. We created outlines sequentially and started writing each episode.”

Each season of Schmigadoon! comprises six episodes. Cinco Paul originally planned for eight episodes during season one, but Apple reduced it. Paul made some painful cuts. “Six is just a little over the length of a regular Broadway musical, including intermission.” One of the main deletions from the original eight was an entire episode in which Melissa is in a convent – a nod to The Sound Of Music. “I thought it was really fun, but if I can pull it out it won’t impact the story.” They also contracted the storylines of the Betsy McDonough and Danny Bailey characters. “They kind of disappeared in the second half of the season. They’ve served their purpose. Now let’s move on to the new characters.”

Cinco Paul pinned each character’s’ headshot on the wall during the development process. Once the season was mapped out, “we tracked them through every episode to make sure we’re taking care of them in the right way and getting them to where they need to go.”

We asked Cinco Paul which character he most identifies with. “I am a mix of Josh and Melissa. Melissa’s side of loving musicals is me. Josh’s optimism and upbeat attitude comes from me.”

Paul’s advice for writers wishing to enter the musical space is to come up with an original idea. “Don’t adapt material you don’t have the rights to. Then you team up with up a composer and a lyricist. Many screenwriters are capable of writing lyrics. After you write a story, write one or two songs as proof of concept.“