Playbill on Thursday published first-look production photos of Schmigadoon! on Broadway, offering the first clear look at the show before its official opening at the Nederlander Theatre on April 20. The stage adaptation of the Apple Original series brings Josh and Melissa back into the musical town of Brigadoon Schmigadoon, this time with a Broadway company built to match the scale of the screen story.
The weight behind the move is the cast and the material: Alex Brightman plays Josh Skinner, Sara Chase plays Melissa Gimble, and the production keeps the series’ Grammy-nominated score while adding new titles and songs cut from the original. The Broadway version follows the plot of the show’s first season, with characters, songs and dance numbers lifted from Golden Age musicals such as Oklahoma!, The Music Man and Carousel. Brightman, Chase, Ann Harada, Brad Oscar, Isabelle McCalla and McKenzie Kurtz are reprising roles from the 2025 D.C. premiere at the Kennedy Center, where the work had its world premiere after first arriving as a two-season Apple TV+ series in 2021 and 2023.
That history matters because Schmigadoon! is not starting over so much as scaling up. The Broadway book, music and lyrics are by series creator Cinco Paul, Christopher Gattelli is directing and choreographing, and the production is backed by Lorne Michaels and No Gurantees Productions. The company also includes Max Clayton, Ana Gasteyer, Ann Harada, Brad Oscar, Isabelle McCalla, Maulik Pancholy, Ayaan Diop, Ivan Hernandez and a large ensemble, with casting by Bernard Telsey and Kristian Charbonier and design work from Scott Pask, Linda Cho, Donald Holder, Walter Trarbach and Tom Watson.
The interesting tension is that the show now has to prove it can work onstage without the cushioning of television editing or camera tricks. Its second season sent the characters to Schmicago and leaned into parodies of 1970s musicals like Pippin, Godspell and Sweeney Todd, but the Broadway production is anchored to the first season’s world. Opening night will answer whether the series’ joke, heart and catalogue of borrowed musical eras can land as a full Broadway event, not just a clever adaptation.
