From co-creator Cinco Paul, the Apple TV+ original series Schmigadoon! is back for Season 2, this time exploring the world of ‘60s and ‘70s musicals via the reimagined town of Schmicago. After realizing that their love is true in Season 1, Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) and Melissa (Cecily Strong) set out for some new relationship insight, but find themselves surrounded by new characters with much darker motives that could lead to more dangerous outcomes.

During this interview with Collider, co-stars Dove Cameron (who plays the Sally Bowles-like Jenny Banks) and Aaron Tveit (who plays Topher, an optimistic hippie living in a world straight out of Hair) talked about getting to explore a different era of musicals for Season 2, the addition of Tituss Burgess as the Narrator, how this series is similar to doing summer stock at a theater, why Cameron felt more deeply connected to Jenny than her Season 1 character, how Tveit enjoyed his Hair-inspired character, and the challenge of prison number Cameron performed alongside Strong and Ariana DeBose (who plays the Emcee).
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Collider: When did you guys find out that, not only would be coming back, but it would be Schmicago now and that it would be a very different world? How did Season 2 compare to Season 1 for you, in that way?

AARON TVEIT: I don’t remember exactly when we found out. It was sometime after the first season aired. I think we all feel that so lucky to be a part of this because this was something where we came together and shot Season 1, literally during the middle of the pandemic, and we couldn’t believe that we were getting to do this. And Season 2 becoming Schmicago was something that we all joked about during Season 1. We were like, “How can we come back together? This is such a closed circuit story. How can we do it?” And we thought, “Well, maybe we can look at the next genre of musicals and era of musicals.” And then, somehow that’s what we got to do. It’s really just been such a joy and a dream to get to do this, with this group of people.

Image via Apple TV+

I thought that I could not love the show any more than I did in the first season, but Tituss Burgess narrating all of this is just absolutely everything.

TVEIT: I watched it recently, and I cannot deal with Titus what he’s doing. He’s so funny.

DOVE CAMERON: He kills me, every time.

TVEIT: The additions of Tituss and Patrick Page, the people they brought in, are just really, really amazing.

What’s it like to have him narrating your story for these episodes? Do you just get bummed that he’s not just walking around narrating your life, after this?

CAMERON: I don’t know about you, but Tituss is walking around, narrating my life. No. He was so perfect. He was the missing thing. It just seemed like he should have been a part of the show, since the very beginning. He’s so of this world. He was brilliant. I sadly didn’t get to really work with him very much because he did a lot of his stuff like with Keegan[-Michael Key] and Cecily [Strong], but I spent a lot of time with him, off camera. We actually ended up going to see Cirque Du Soleil, just me and him. We had a little cute day out together, and I just fell in love with him. He’s so wonderful.

Did it feel very surreal to be returning to a show where Josh and Melissa are the only characters that are the same and you’re all back together, but you’re playing very different characters? Was that fun? Were there moments where it was just bizarre?

TVEIT: This has felt like band of actors, just putting on a play. And all of us have lots of theater experience, so you get used to that. It feels like doing summer stock at the theater. You have the same group of people and you put on three shows, over the course of six weeks, so it really felt very reminiscent of that. So, for us, because we all have theater backgrounds, it wasn’t a new thing. We just felt so cool to get to do it.

CAMERON: Aaron’s answer is exactly right, but also, in all honesty, we are such little nerdy idiots. Yes, it feels like a theater company, but it also feels like summer camp with your best friends when you’re 12 years old and you have all week to do whatever you want, and we’re all just putting on funny hats. It was so childlike and healing and amazing and very natural.

Image via Apple TV+

Dove, what did you most enjoy about Jenny? How did you most connect to her? What did you like about her? Did you miss your previous character, or was it just fun to dive into her?

CAMERON: I feel like Betsy is something that I have been asked to do a lot, playing the empty head, no thoughts except for you, busty girl-next-door archetype. I feel like I’ve done it to death. I don’t miss it. It was fun to poke fun at in Season 1, but it’s definitely not something where I’m like, “Wow, I really need to do that again.” But Jenny is something that I actually feel more closely akin to in my life, just with the trauma and the depth of her own avoidance of her trauma, and the performative element, and the darkness, and all the covering that she does. I feel like a lot of my younger years were spent in Jenny’s shoes. And having all of that humanness, behind the lens of such a camp, over-the-top caricature of the character, was really fun. I had the time of my life.

Did you get to help create the look for her? I love how her hair changes length, depending on what’s going on.

CAMERON: Without giving anything away, when Jenny finds herself in the Hair hippie world with Aaron’s character, her hair magically grows with extensions. It’s so funny. That just speaks to the surrealism of this world that Cinco [Paul] created. There are no rules. But no, I didn’t get to create the looks. They were pretty directly inspired by Sally Bowles in Cabaret. But I did get to apply a lot of lashes, every day. I was like, “I’ll help you place those.” It was fun. It’s just dress-up.

Image via Apple TV+

Aaron, what did you enjoy about Topher and living in his whole Hair world?

TVEIT: It’s a real shift. You spend a lot of time in the club, in that very dark Cabaret place. And then, you go to this very technicolor dream of our Hair set. Even the way they shot it was very different, with the colors that they brought into the camera. I’ve never gotten to do Hair in my own life, so getting to step into these shows and parts that I’ve admired and loved for a long time, in this way, it’s a real honor and a gift. I just got to do the ridiculous version of Claude, or Pippin, or Jesus, that was in my head, but somehow, I got to do it for real, on this show. It was really something cool.

How was it to have Keegan-Michael Key as a scene partner and a singing partner? As someone who doesn’t have as much experience with stage musicals, what was it like to work with him?

TVEIT: Keegan is the greatest. He’s an amazing singer, himself, and he wants to do more and more of that. It was so cool to see that and be around him while he was stepping into this. We would to make Cecily or Keegan laugh, and getting a laugh out of him, I just felt like I could retire. I was like, “Okay, I made you laugh. It’s all good.” He’s one of the hardest working people I’ve ever been around, and one of the nicest people too. Dove got to do a lot of stuff with Keegan in Season 1, and I was with Cecily, and we got to switch this year. It was a lot of fun to get to play with the other side, that we didn’t get to, the first time around.

Image via Apple TV+

Dove, I love the prison number that you have in episode two, where you’re singing and dancing with Cecily and Ariana DeBose, and you’re all chained together. What was it like to do that? Did it take some time to figure that out?

TVEIT: That’s such a good number.

CAMERON: I’m gonna be honest with you, that was so mother-effing hard. That was so ridiculously hard.

TVEIT: But it’s so good.

CAMERON: Thank you.

TVEIT: When I saw that all cut together, I was like, “Oh, my God!”

CAMERON: I don’t even know how we did it. We made it look easier than it was. We rehearsed it with no chains. We just rehearsed it with the steps. We were doing all these semi-tap moves, but on either side of the chain. But then, when you move, you get trapped in the chain. It was so easy, in theory. But then, the second we put the chains on, the day before, we all had a panic attack. We were like, “It’s impossible! It can’t be done!” It was actually really intimidating. But when we got it done, we were like, “Oh, my God, pack it up. We’re tap dancing for life. We’re taking this show on the road.” It was also really fun. It was so fun to do a number with Cecily and Ariana, who are two of my favorite people.

Schmigadoon! is available to stream at Apple TV+.