Dove Cameron has some opinions on the season 2 premiere of Schmigadoon! and most of them revolve around her starring dance number in the season premiere, where her dance partner was a wooden chair that reportedly required Cameron’s Jenny Banks to pull some smooth moves that bordered on stunt work, according to her account of the showstopping, glitz-and-glam number.
Premiering on Apple TV+ in 2021, Schmigadoon! tells the story of Melissa (Cecily Strong) and Josh (Keegan-Michael Key), a pair of backpacking doctors who stumble upon the town of Schmigadoon, where all the residents act like they’re in a classic musical. The show’s first season borrowed its musical numbers from sweet classics like “Brigadoon” and “Oklahoma.” It featured Dove Cameron as Betsy, the sugar-sweet, doe-eyed farmer’s daughter in a small farming town full of cheerful residents.
Season 2 of Schmigadoon! sees Melissa and Josh, now married, having escaped Schmigadoon but attempting to find the idyllic town again after their relationship hits a rough patch. Instead, they find the city of Schmicago, which takes on a darker, slicker tone, borrowing musical numbers from Fosse musicals like “Chicago,” “Cabaret,” and “All That Jazz,” along with other hits from the 1960s through the 80s. To fit this new vibe, Dove Cameron stars as Jenny Banks, a starlet with a striking black bob and a glittery black dress who opened the season with a rendition of “Kaput” in homage to Liza Minelli’s “Mein Herr” from the 1972 film adaptation of “Cabaret.”
Dove Cameron on Dancing with the Chairs – “This is Stunt Work, Honey!”
In the musical number, Cameron’s Jenny Banks drags a wooden chair across the stage of the Kratt Klubb, set against a shimmering red backdrop as she launches into a musical number that required Dove Cameron’s Jenny Banks to balance on, straddle, and eventually do a split on top of the chair – not an easy task, according to Cameron.
“Let me tell you something about those chairs: they were not nailed down, and they weighed about four pounds each,” she told Variety.
“Those f***ing chairs are as flimsy as a piece of sourdough, and I was having a panic attack! It’s really funny because dancing with them requires so much more core work and muscular tension than one would think. When you look at it, it looks easy. But when I have one shoe firmly in the middle of the chair and the other is tracing around it, I am an inch away from death! It was so intense.”
In a later statement, she also added that dancing with chairs is “like dancing with a very unreliable dance partner,” remarking that learning how to manage her balance and move in time with her cabaret girls was physically taxing, saying of the experience that “This is stunt work, honey!”
The latest episode of Schmigadoon! Season 2, “Doorway to Where,” was dropped to Apple TV+ yesterday, April 5th. The next episode is slated to air April 12th, so don’t forget to catch Schmigadoon!, starring Dove Cameron as intrepid dancer Jenny Banks, on Apple TV+. What did you think of Jenny Banks’ performance in “Kaput”? Did you have a favorite dance number from the season? Let us know in the comments!