For both performers, it was a chance to indulge a childhood dream.
Key meanwhile has had a string of musicals on his resume, includingThe PromandJingle Jangle.
But he didn’t plan it that way.
Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key on ‘Schmigadoon!'.Apple TV+
“The next phase was for me to start doing more drama,” he tells EW.
But I wasn’t consciously thinking about this.
All of a sudden, thoughts become things."
Like Strong, Key grew up loving musical theater, specifically stories based in 19th-century London.
He citesOliverandScrooge, a musical version ofA Christmas Carolwith Albert Finney, as major touchstones.
And then I’d sing ‘Consider Yourself.’
It was weeks of that."
But the actors had different challenges.
“I’m not a dancer,” she confesses.
At least it wasn’t a stretch playing someone who marveled at the musical world around her.
“It felt like the best version of me I could ever aspire to be,” Strong muses.
On the other end of the spectrum, Key had to suppress his own musical-loving instincts.
“It was very difficult,” Key says of the acting challenge.
I’m like, ‘No expression?
Then get the dancers out of here!’.
Paul, who created the show with Ken Daurio, adds, “He so wanted to join in.
It’s like, ‘Keegan, no.
Remember, you hate musicals.’
But they have to be our eyes when everybody else around them is a wacky musical theater trope.”
(They’re both alums of Chicago’s Second City improv theater.)
“We tried to also honor Cinco’s words, since he’s such a beautiful writer.
But he worked with us.”
It was a bittersweet boon.
“We felt a profound responsibility.”
“I hope that we get to share that, and I hope that’s what comes across.
“The message is so lovely,” Key reflects.
“That we have the ability to grow.
