From co-creator Cinco Paul, Season 2 of the Apple TV+ original series Schmigadoon! is 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 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Tituss Burgess talked about joining as the quintessential musical Narrator, getting to hold the key to unlocking the plot and setting up the situations, why musicals became so important to him, the challenge of the original songs, and who he would want for a narrator, if he ever got stuck in a musical. He also talked about why he wanted to bring The Preacher’s Wife to the stage as a musical that’s debuting in 2024.

Collider: I absolutely adore you in Season 2 of Schmigadoon! I love everything you did as this character. I loved the show in the first season and I didn’t know how they were going to do it again for another season. I didn’t know how it could get any better, until I saw this Schmicago world and the addition of your character, The Narrator.

TITUSS BURGESS: That is so kind. Thank you so much. It’s so much fun. It’s whimsical and nonsensical, and I’m here for it all. It was a project that I didn’t know I needed, to be perfectly frank with you.

This seems like one of those characters that allows for a lot of room to play around. Did you have a lot of freedom to find what you wanted the narrator to be, or was it very clear on the page?

BURGESS: Cinco [Paul] leaves no stone unturned. I said what was written, and I sang what was written, but I certainly offered my own shading, and I offered it to Cinco before I put it on camera. At a certain point, he and I decided to trust each other without checking in, so by episode three, I started just doing whatever I wanted, and he was totally fine with it and loved it.

It seems like, with this character, even the mood can change and that you don’t have to necessarily be set into one thing, all the way through, which is part of what’s so fun about this show, in general.

BURGESS: I agree. One of the questions that keeps coming up is, “Is it fun, being so sinister and so evil?” And I maintain that The Narrator is not inherently evil or manipulative. While he holds the key to unlocking the plot or setting up situations that Josh and Melissa walk into, it’s because of his lack of being seen. The Narrator wants someone to narrate his story. He’s tired of setting up everyone else. And I think it’s because of that frustration that he enjoys how manipulative he can be. It isn’t just because he’s inherently manipulative. The sixties, seventies, and early eighties musicals offered up a reflection of the world it found itself in. They were commenting on the times. Everything that The Narrator and musicals of that era posed to the audience was a big rhetorical question. It was a bit of, “This is where we are. Why are we all here? We all know how this is gonna turn out.”

The first season of this show was a bit of a leap of faith for the cast because it is a wild concept, but you had the advantage of going into Season 2, after that was already done. Did you have a good sense of what this would be, going into it?

BURGESS: They certainly did the test run with Season 1, so going into it, I knew there was an audience for it and a hunger and an appetite for it. It wasn’t like, “Oh, I hope this works,” or whatever. I also know that the actors and the company is a good barometer, in terms of this type of storytelling. We were all a good litmus test, as to whether or not this thing was gonna stick because we were all such fans of the music and the characters that we were paying homage to, and we’re all such musical theater dorks. If it got us off, then we knew that the audience was gonna have a good time. If the audience has half of a good time as we did preparing it, then we knew we were gonna win. That was the buffer and the comfort that I was able to walk into this project with.

In my dreams, when you go to a set like this, where everybody is just so musically talented, I picture all of you singing and dancing with each other, all day, whether you’re shooting the show or not. Do you ever just break into song together on set? Does that ever actually happen, outside of my dreams?

BURGESS: We would, but perhaps not to the degree that you would think. Our entire day is spent doing that, so we enjoy that connection when the cameras roll. If we do dissolve into song and dance off camera, it’s gotta be because it’s eight hundred in the morning and we’re completely spent, not so much in the Fame-esque way that you view breaking into song and dance.

You’ve talked about this show being a love letter to musicals. When did musicals become something important to you? Was there one musical you saw that just made you never look back?

BURGESS: There were two. The first one was Lena Horne singing “Believe in Yourself” from The Wiz. I saw the clip before I saw the movie. I thought that woman lived and breathed to give me that message. The lyrics say, “If you believe within your heart, you’ll know that no one can change the path and you must go. Believe what you feel and know you are right because the time will come around when you’ll say it’s yours.” I had never been spoken to like that before. It gives me chills now. I felt so seen by this woman that I would never meet, and I felt so seen by an art form that I never knew would be home for me. I didn’t quite fit entirely in the church, and I didn’t quite fit entirely in school, and I didn’t quite fit entirely in the gay community, and I didn’t quite fit entirely being culturally Christian, but I fit on stage. So, that was one of them. The other one was, oddly, Oliver! I had the great fortune of playing Fagin when I was in middle school, and I’ll never forget singing “Reviewing the Situation.” I don’t know that I used this language in middle school, but I do recall that it made me think about binary structures, and right versus wrong. When I sang that song, I thought, “I bet everyone thinks that they are right.” It’s like the Doppler effect. The pitch of the actual thing never changes, but as it goes down the street, it sounds like it’s changing, and everyone will have a different experience of the pitch, and will be able to recall and report on the pitch differently, but we are all right. We are all correct, in what we recall. “Reviewing the Situation” made me think, “Be slower to tell someone that they are wrong and examine all the reasons why they think they are right, and the truth lies somewhere in between.”

It seems like you’ve been singing, in one way or another, your whole life. Did you have a moment where you knew you wanted that to be a career, and that all the struggle and the heartache that comes with trying to find success in the arts would be worth it?

BURGESS: I didn’t know enough to know that there was a struggle, darling. That wasn’t my ministry. I was poor. I didn’t have the good fortune to be in these fucking camps and to experience Broadway vets coming to talk to me, as a little child. That was not my thing. So, I had no other choice. I quickly found out what was real when I got to New York, but there was nothing that deterred me or informed me that the road ahead was going to be a difficult one because I had nothing to compare it to.

This show provides the rare experience of getting to be a part of so many different musicals in one project. It’s paying tribute to all sorts of shows. What is the most fun about getting to be a narrator across all of those different musical tributes, blended into one show?

BURGESS: On the macro, it is lovely to give a big old hug to all the musicals that we’ve all grown up with, and know and love and get to share, communally. It’s fun to be on the outside of it and to be able to serve it up, if you will. I am so proud to be a part of this community of storytellers and this format with which we tell stories. And then, on the micro, it was a bit of a study for me. I watched myself walk through a very dark time. What Cinco gave us in the finale is a song called “Every Day Can Be a Happy Beginning.” It was just nice to curate controlled choice, but then be on the outside of a story that instructs us that it’s not what we’re given, but rather what we do with the information.

It must be so fun to live in a musical era that’s familiar, but also get to do original songs within that. What was it like to hear these songs, to rehearse these songs, and to figure out how to really bring them to life within this show?

BURGESS: It wasn’t as fun as you’d think. It was really hard. It was really difficult. They’re close enough to the original source material, but lyrically and story wise, they’re completely different. You’re in a bit of a crossfire, and it really does a number on your mind. But once you get the hang of it and you can sit inside what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, then it gets fun. But it’s quite the journey to get there, honey.

The music is just so great. It never makes fun of the original music, but it pays tribute in a really delightful way.

BURGESS: That’s the beautiful thing about the world that Cinco Paul and company created. This is the closest I’ll come to being able to say to Ben Vereen, “Thank you for carving out a space for me, in a medium that I didn’t rightfully know would accept me, or even be able to see me.” I’m so grateful that Cinco has handed – I don’t wanna say that it’s parodying or even being satirical – one big love letter and homage that says, “Thank you for getting us all here and giving us the opportunity to create something wholly new because of what you’ve already done.” It does not go lost on me, and it lives in my heart, rent-free, forever.

If you ended up on this path that Josh and Melissa are on, and you found your life suddenly become a musical, even if only for a day, what era of musical would you want it to be and who would you want narrating it?

BURGESS: Right now, it would be the seventies. The musical would be Company. I would be Bobby. Do you know who Julia McKenzie is? She was a soprano who mostly did her stage work in the West End. She was in Follies, most notably for me, and she sings a song called “In Buddy’s Eyes.” There’s something about the color of her voice, and the gentle but firm knowingness that she has in her voice. I’d like her to narrate how I move in and out of relationships, as I search for myself and I search for what home really is. So, it would definitely be Company, I would definitely be Bobby, Bobby would definitely have a narrator, and the narrator would be Julie McKenzie.

You’re world premiering your own musical, The Preacher’s Wife, in 2024? What made you want to turn that movie into a stage musical?

BURGESS: My story is one of unmitigated blind faith. That is all I have. It is all I have ever had. My familial relationships are strong, and then they weaken. And my chosen family relationships get strong, and then they weaken. My sense of home feels solid, and then it just evaporates and all that is there is faith. I did not give myself this idea. I think the idea was given to me by the great Them and I was just obedient. I hope and I pray that people have as much of a transformative experience consuming the material, as I had writing it. That musical raised me on the longest term relationship I have ever had and it has shown me the greatest reciprocity of any connection I have ever had. It is my hope that when people see it, they can remove the language. It is not heavy-handed and it is not Christianity-centric. It is purely about faith. It just happens to take place in a family whose lives are based around a church. I pulled, along with Azie Dungey, the story out of the church and into the streets. We examine, what do you do when you don’t know what to do? It is a story I know well. It is in my DNA. I’m experiencing it right now, and I’m watching myself do the very thing that I’ve written about. It is wild and it is exhausting and it is exhilarating, and I am grateful that I was able to tell that story.

Can you be excited about doing it, while you’re in the experience, or does it feel like you’ve taken a breath that you’re not going to be able to exhale until it’s actually on the stage?

BURGESS: I know what I did was honest. I know what I wrote was honest. I was obedient. I’ve been working on this for 12 years. We’ve gotten close, and then not quite, and then close, and then not quite. I know my part in this story, and now my part is to step back and allow for the space in between to take over and do what it does. I’m not holding my breath, or anything. I did my part. So, you guys hold your breath, as you go and watch it.

Schmigadoon! is available to stream at Apple TV+.