Jane Krakowski Will Gladly Do the Splits for Your Entertainment

If you’re making a piece of entertainment and are looking to stop the show, a good bet is to have Jane Krakowski enter by descending from the rafters, while sexily—and perfectly—executing circus acrobatics.

That’s precisely how Krakowski begins her barn-burner of a number, “Bells and Whistles,” in the latest episode of Schmigadoon! There are seemingly no bells and whistles left for the Tony-winning star to pull out by the end of the episode. She swings on a trapeze, tap dances, roller skates, sings complicated lyrics at a speed that would impress Nicki Minaj, and, as the grand finale, does perfect splits.

“There’s very little I can’t do,” her character, Bobbie Flanagan, says earlier in the episode, foreshadowing the song-and-dance bonanza to come. “Besides bore people. Or look bad in any kind of suit.”

Krakowski is more humble when talking about the number with The Daily Beast’s Obsessed. “I’ve exhausted my special skills résumé,” she says, laughing. “Even the ones I lied about, I had to throw in.”

In Season 2 of Apple TV+’s Schmigadoon!, which premieres new episodes every Wednesday, Krakowski’s Bobbie Flanagan is the fictional musical-theater universe’s amalgamation of characters from Chicago. She’s a little Roxie Hart and a little Velma Kelly. And, because she’s the lawyer tasked with getting Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) off on bogus murder charges, she’s got a lot of Billy Flynn. The name Bobbie is a nod to another musical from the time period, Stephen Sondheim’s Company, whose Tony-winning revival featuring a female lead—“Bobbie” instead of “Bobby”—recently ran the first time.

The series revolves around a struggling couple, Key’s Josh and Cecily Strong’s Melissa. They stumble into a magical town where everyone thinks they’re in a musical, behaving like the stock character types made famous by iconic shows. In Season 1, that was Schmigadoon, where townsfolk played by the likes of Alan Cumming, Kristin Chenoweth, Ariana DeBose, and Krakowski channeled Golden Age musicals, including Oklahoma!, The Music Man, and Carousel.

Season 2 finds Josh and Melissa once again looking for a fix to their relationship woes, this time ending up in Schmicago, where familiar faces—the Season 1 cast is back—reference the darker, moodier shows of the ’60s and ’70s, like Chicago, Cabaret, Sweeney Todd, A Chorus Line, and Pippin. The worlds of those productions shouldn’t make sense together. Thanks to showrunner and music writer Cinco Paul, they somehow do—and, as Krakowski’s number in Episode 3 proves, ingeniously so.

“When we heard that we were doing Schmicago, you can't help but think, which part will Cinco write for me in this season?” Krakowski says. Broadway obsessives would have likely fancast the star as Roxie Hart, a role anyone familiar with Krakowski’s talents knows she’s practically born to play. Subverting that expectation by instead making her Schmigadoon!’s version of Billy Flynn was “such a smart choice on Cinco’s behalf,” she says.

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One of those Broadway obsessives himself, Paul knew what he was doing when he wrote Krakowski this role. “Bells and Whistles” is a clear homage to Billy’s big “Razzle Dazzle” number in Chicago, in which he sings about putting on a show that would distract the jury from the truth.

The impressive finished product doubles as a retrospective on Krakowski’s entire Broadway career. She roller-skates, like she did on stage in Starlight Express, the show in which she made her Broadway debut in 1987. She tap-dances and soft-shoes a la 1989’s Grand Hotel, which scored Krakowski her first Tony nomination. The rap-like verse that sprints through with expert articulation references the ticker-tape delivery of “Not Getting Married Day” in Company, which she starred in on Broadway in 1995. And if you saw Krakowski’s most recent Tony-nominated performance in the 2016 revival of She Loves Me, that she can nail the splits shouldn’t come as a surprise.

And while she’s made her entrance from the rafters before—winning a Tony for her performance, dangling from silks, in 2003’s production of Nine—this was the first time she’s done it while on a trapeze.

“I said to Jane, we want you to do this number in the courtroom, where you're showing off every skill you have. What else do you have?” Paul says. “She said, ‘Well, I was in Starlight Express, so I can roller-skate. I said, perfect. We'll get you some roller skates. And she said, ‘You have me coming down on a trapeze, but I would like to learn some tricks.’ So she did! Then all of a sudden, she’s swinging from it. No stunt person. That's Jane, 100 percent.”

What did it take to pull all that off? “Obviously, I’m a human miracle,” Bobbie says in the episode—something that’s hard to dispute about Krakowski herself.

In a conversation with Obsessed, Krakowski broke down the big number, its myriad musical theater references, and why she’ll keep coming back for as many seasons of Schmigadoon! as will have her.

What was your reaction when you learned Season 2 would be “Schmicago”-themed?

I was thrilled that Cinco always had it in mind that Schmigadoon would be like Act 1, and Schmicago would be Act 2. These are the decades that I grew up watching and that influenced me so heavily. Especially the female leads of the musicals of the time: the Fosse women, Gwen Verndon and Chita Rivera; A Chorus Line; Ann Reinking. All these women that were not the ingenues, who were quirky. They were confident in their sexuality. They were willing to show both and live in that world. I just got to play a lady lawyer who has news press conferences in fishnets and garter belts. I wish I could live out loud like that every single day.

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In Season 1, the music, characters, and shows referenced all had the same style of music and costumes. But this season, with Schmicago, it’s Cabaret meets A Chorus Line meets Sweeney Todd—three aesthetically and musically different shows. What was it like to be a part of that Broadway mash-up?

It was a mash-up that I didn’t see coming, and a mash-up that I didn’t know I really needed until I read it. Cinco somehow puts Annie with Sweeney Todd in the most genius way. I was like, why has no one done that before? Now I can never unsee this. Cinco somehow finds a world where Sally Bowles can meet Sweeney Todd, and there can be heartfelt feelings and an emotional tie-in. It is kind of amazing.

I think musical theater fans are shocked by how well it works.

I think if you don’t know or love musical theater, you’re still going to be entertained by Schmicago. But if you do know musical theater, you're gonna love it on a whole other level. I'm that fan.

When musical theater fans heard about the Schmicago concept and that you were returning for it, many likely assumed you’d be sending up Roxie Hart. How did you react to learning that you’d actually be playing a version of Billy Flynn?

It took me a little by surprise. When we heard that we were doing Schmicago, you can’t help but think, “Which part will Cinco write for me in this season?” It’s such a smart choice on his behalf. I'm Bobbie Flanagan, which “Bobbie,” obviously, is a call out to the most recent Company revival, where Bobby is played by a woman. It just lives on so many meta levels. There’s a lot of Roxie in Bobbie Flanagan’s number, but there's also musical references to “Dance 10, Looks 3,” the “tits and ass” number from A Chorus Line. Once I could hear that, I was like, “Oh, I'm going to try to do that stamp.”

That number is a greatest hits of your Broadway career.

I’ve exhausted my special skills résumé. Even the ones I lied about, I had to throw in.

Ha! Which skills are those?

I think horseback riding was on my special skills résumé for a long-ass time. I’ve been on a horse once.

Of course!

I had never trapezed. That was a first for me. The script said that “Bobbies enters from the ceiling on the trapeze,” but then I was just supposed to get off. I asked Cinco, “Hey, if I learned a few tricks, do you think you would let me film them?” He said he was game, so I went to trapeze school for a few lessons, to see what I could learn or physically pull off but before we got to the filming day.

I was going to ask: How many of the tricks in the number did you suggest, and how much of it was Cinco knowing your Broadway background and putting you through the gauntlet?

Some were written in the first script, because he knew that I had done them. Some are obviously nods to musicals in the past. There’s a nod to my Starlight Express Broadway debut. And then some are iconic from Chicago, like the dummy from “Both Reached For the Gun.” I’ve always wanted to do the dance from “Hot Honey Rag.” I’ve always wanted to learn it, even if I only do it in my living room. So to get one or two steps of that in there was a great joy for me.

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