Yahoo Sports Jane Krakowski talks 'sparkler work,' learning trapeze, and perfecting her splits for Schmigadoon season 2
The moniker "triple threat" was invented for performers like Jane Krakowski.
Krakowski, best known to television audiences for her wacky turns as Jenna Maroney on 30 Rock and Jacqueline White on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, is also a Tony-winning Broadway star. On Schmigadoon!,she finally gets the chance to show television audiences her theatrical chops.
She was only available for three days during the production of the series' first season, but with season 2, which ventures to the darker musicals of the 1960s and '70s in the town of Schmicago, Krakowski was ready to play for both acts. Creator Cinco Paul wrote for the actress the role of Bobbie Flanagan, a gender-bent twist on Chicago lawyer Billy Flynn — and was determined to give her a number to showcase her talent.
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The result was "Bells and Whistles," a number that finds Krakowski slinking her way through a courtroom, tap dancing to the beat of a stenographer's typewriter, roller-skating blindfolded, cartwheeling, doing the splits, and swinging from a trapeze.
"The concept was: Jane Krakowski is the most talented person on the planet — how can we show that in a three-minute song?" Paul previously told EW.
When Krakowski first received the script for the number, the stage directions included much of the final choreography, dotted with a clear effort to showcase any of the talents that might belong in the "special skills" section of her résumé. "That exhilarated me and equal parts scared me," she tells EW, sharing some behind-the-scenes photos from her time filming the number. "That's the best place to be in — when you get a script, you open it, and you read it and you are so excited to get to play this character, but also a little bit scared because you know it's really worth it and that it matters to you."
"Many of the 'bells and whistles' were written in there," she continues. "Some that I don't do, like juggling, was in there, and I called Cinco and said, 'Do you want me to learn juggling?' He's like, 'No.' Some references he made, he knew I could do. He knew I could roller skate [from Starlight Express]. So, that was in there. He knew I had previously done splits in something else, so that was a direct reference of something he knew I could do. But I told him, 'I'll learn whatever you want me to learn.' To my greatest delight, it did say that she enters on a trapeze. [Laughs] I was so excited because I love getting to learn new tricks."
Yes, that's right, Krakowski learned how to be a trapeze artist for "Bells and Whistles." As luck would have it, there was a trapeze school less than a mile from the Schmigadoon set where they were filming just outside of Vancouver, Canada. She took lessons for a few weeks while also filming the show and rehearsing the number.
"It's hard," she admits. "I have real admiration for people who make it look easy. I always think I could just do these things and then I realize, 'Oh, these people have actual muscles and strength to do this.' For me, it was a combo of learning new things and recollections from my childhood on the monkey bars. It was like, 'Okay, I used to do this on the monkey bars. Is this anything in the trap world?' They would coach me through what we could learn in the timeframe."
courtesy Jane Krakowski Jane Krakowski behind the scenes of 'Schmigadoon' season 2
Krakowski's willingness to learn the new skill even led to a change in the set design. As scripted, she was supposed to merely enter on the trapeze, but she wanted to swing on it and exhibit more tricks as part of Bobbie's attempt to wow the jury. "I said, 'Why am I getting off? If she's really trying to mesmerize the jury and confound them with her womanly abilities, can I stay on the trapeze?'" she recounts. "The set design was not designed for that. They had designed a four-by-six opening in the ceiling. And they said, 'Let me see if we can open the ceiling more. If you're willing to go to trapeze school and learn some tricks, we'd love to open the ceiling.'"
Her grand entrance on the trapeze also includes an impressive dismount in which she turns herself upside down and does a standing somersault off the trapeze. "[Choreographer] Chris [Gattelli], was like, 'We don't have to [show you getting off], we can cut away and then you'll just be off of it,'" she recalls. "And I was like, 'No, I wanna try to see if we can show the dismount.' My original intention was to do one full rotation around the bar. I have these great expectations in my mind, and that was not doable. I couldn't really get the full rotation backwards in the short amount of time that we had. But I was happy with where we got to, and I at least got to do a dismount on camera."
courtesy Jane Krakowski Jane Krakowski on the set of 'Schmigadoon' season 2
Reconstructing sets and nailing dismounts were far from the only challenges of the number (and the use of the trapeze). Schmigadoon shoots its musical numbers over half of a day, at most over a full day, imposing a nerve-wracking time constraint to the proceedings. Plus, there was the fact that they greatly changed their filming style to match the musical aesthetic of season 2.
"In season 1, most of the numbers were filmed proscenium style, meaning we all faced forward and performed toward the cameras. We could do all or most in large shots," explains Krakowski. "In season 2, because they were going for such a different style, we were not in a proscenium setting. We knew 'Bells and Whistles' would be shot almost 360. We had to break down the number as to which way the camera was going to be during the day. But we always knew that we were going to try to do the trapeze at the end of the day to get as many passes as we could. It literally was that I got on the trapeze, we did the dismount a few times, and then once I got up to the ceiling, I kept going back and forth and tried to do as many takes as I could get before they had to call wrap."
courtesy Jane Krakowski Jane Krakowski on the set of 'Schmigadoon' season 2
Krakowski and Gattelli worked together to lock in the rest of Bobbie Flanagan's "bells and whistles" and what specific musical numbers, besides Chicago's "Razzle Dazzle," they wanted to pay homage to in the choreography. One such moment, where Bobbie drinks a glass of water while her voice comes out of the mouth of Josh (Keegan-Michael Key), is a clear nod to "They Both Reached for the Gun" ("I did not learn ventriloquism," quips Krakowski). But others are a bit more nuanced — like nods to Chicago's "Hot Honey Rag" and A Chorus Line's Val. For her, figuring out the beats of the number was essential to unlocking who Bobbie was.
"I was ridiculously excited that we were going to be doing the musicals of the '60s and '70s, which are the ones that I most know and love," she notes. "Even before I started getting professional work in this business, I was this kid who was taking dance classes in New York City and then going to Broadway shows at night and wanting to be those women that I saw up on the stage."
courtesy Jane Krakowski Jane Krakowski on the set of 'Schmigadoon' season 2
Despite the fact that she was only 18 years old when she made her Broadway debut as Dinah the Dining Car in 1987's Starlight Express, Krakowski says she's still quite good at roller skating (in part because she regularly skates with her son).
The number ends with Bobbie doing a cartwheel into the splits on the edge of the jury box. "The cartwheels are a bit more like riding a bike," she says. "They come right back. But my body is getting older and needs a little bit more Advil to get the splits all the way back where they used to be. [Laughs] The minute I opened the script and saw that it ended in the split, I started stretching. I was like, 'Oh, I am not limber. I am going to have to start now.'"
From the time she read the script to the day she shot the number, she put herself on a daily stretching regimen to get her flexibility back where she needed it to be (she keeps getting targeted ads for stretching apps now). To top it all off, Bobbie ends the number waving sparklers around. "Sparkler work! I didn't know that was a thing," Krakowski says with a laugh.
Fire marshals were on hand to ensure everyone's safety, but Krakowski got a bit caught up in the TV magic. "I had on a platinum wig, and they were like, 'You can't bring them anywhere near your body,'" she says. "Literally the first take, I totally got wrapped up in the moment and put them completely next to my body on the wood. We were fine, but like, [Jane, really?]"
courtesy Jane Krakowski Jane Krakowski behind the scenes of 'Schmigadoon' season 2
Krakowski hopes for a third season (though that will be up to AppleTV+ and the end date of the writers' strike). Many assume the next logical step would be the musicals of the 1980s and '90s, the Broadway landscape where Krakowski herself came up — though that doesn't mean she has any specific character requests or a burning desire to reprise her role from Starlight Express.
"I'm not one to give Cinco a wish list," she says. "Though I suggested to him to do an all-Sondheim season because we're at this point in honoring the great Stephen Sondheim in our world right now. He already dabbled in the Sondheim world in Schmicago, so we know he could do it. I don't think he's going to give us anything that you think he's going to give us, knowing his incredible intelligence and knowledge of musical theater."
The only thing Krakowski is certain of is that if it happens, it will be yet another "musical theater dream" for her, one that allows her — to borrow a musical phrase — to do a few of her favorite things. "It combines what I love about doing live musical theater and Broadway shows, which is the rehearsal process and the collaboration and great comedy television," she concludes. "They converged in Schmicago for me."
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