If Schmigadoon! was a golden-age fever dream in technicolor optimism, Schmicago was the hangover — a smoky, sequined dive bar where love gets traded for ambition, and everyone’s trying to sing their way out of the dark. “We always knew it was going to evolve,” Dove Cameron says, describing how creator Cinco Paul envisioned the Apple TV+ musical series as an anthology from the start. “He might have alluded to it at the end of Season One, but it was always his ambition that we’d get to play new characters each time. Which is brilliant, because it lets us explore more — musically, emotionally, tonally.”
Aaron Tveit nods. “We kind of joked about that early on, actually — that we were like a repertory company doing a new show each season. And now, somehow, that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Season Two trades the pastel perfection of the ‘40s and ‘50s for the decadent grime of the ‘60s and ‘70s — the era of Cabaret, Chicago, Hair, and Jesus Christ Superstar. The rules change accordingly. “Season One was about finding true love — that’s the Golden Age,” Tveit says. “But these later musicals were darker, sexier, grittier. So this time, the goal is to somehow create a happy ending in the most unhappy place imaginable.”
That darkness wasn’t lost on Cameron, who relished the chance to slip into the shadows. “I think Cinco picked up on something in me,” she laughs. “He saw something a little off in Season One and was like, ‘Let’s make her darker.’” Her character, Jenny, embodies both seduction and self-awareness — a woman performing so hard she starts to lose sight of what’s real. “When I was younger, I definitely related to that,” Cameron says. “Feeling like I had to perform to the point that I didn’t know what the mask was anymore. It’s something a lot of people — not just actors — deal with now. Who are we when we’re not performing for someone else?”
Tveit feels that blur, too. “Jenny and Topher both start as these blank canvases that people project onto,” he says. “By the end, in finding each other, they kind of find themselves. That’s been my journey as an actor, too. At first, you’re just trying to figure out what you’re doing, you don’t think you deserve to be there — and eventually, you have to learn who you actually are.”
Cameron’s dual career as both actor and pop star makes that identity dance even more interesting. Her recent singles, moody and cinematic, feel like they could play over a Schmicago montage. “It’s funny, because most of the music I’ve released came before we shot Season Two,” she says. “But I think Cinco might’ve been inspired by the darker stuff I was writing. So it kind of reversed — instead of the show influencing my music, maybe my music influenced the show.”
And she has new music coming. Her upcoming album, Celestial Body, features a sample of Edwyn Collins’ “A Girl Like You,” which she says is one of her favorite things she’s ever recorded. “It’s been a long time coming,” she grins. Tveit, too, hints that new songs might be on the way: “Nothing concrete right now, but hopefully sooner than later. Let’s call this the album announcement,” he jokes.
Of course, every Schmigadoon! fan wants to know what’s next. If Season One was Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Season Two was Kander and Ebb, what comes after Schmicago? “We don’t know if there’ll be a Season Three,” Tveit admits carefully. “But we have an idea. A potential one, if things go our way.” Cameron smiles like someone who knows more than she’s saying. “We’ll just say we’ve thought about it,” she teases.
Even if it ends here, both stars have clearly found something meaningful in this absurd, tuneful experiment. For Cameron, it circles back to the question the show itself asks: would you stay in a place like Schmicago, or return to the real world? “When I was a kid, film and TV felt like an alternate universe — a place where everything was perfect and scripted,” she says. “A lot of actors escape into that. But I’ve come to love the real world. It’s actually magical, if you stop trying to escape it all the time.”
Tveit agrees. “The real world is tough. But that’s why musicals exist — to give you something to escape into, so you can appreciate what’s real when you come back.”
And that’s maybe the hidden genius of Schmicago. Under the jazz hands and the meta jokes about Sondheim and Fosse, it’s a show about waking up — about realizing that art isn’t a distraction from life, it’s a way back into it.
For now, Cameron and Tveit are both back in that real world — working, writing, scheming. “Hopefully there’s more to come,” Cameron says, with a knowing shrug. “But even if not, I’m just happy we got to make something this weird and this beautiful.”
Weird and beautiful — which, in Schmicago, is probably the closest thing to a happy ending anyone gets.
Watch the interview above and then check out the trailer below.
