Ana Gasteyer on Her Schmigadoon! Broadway Role: “I Could Do This Forever”

Ana Gasteyer knows a thing or two about being funny. But the comedian’s love for Broadway is anything but a joke.

Known to generations of fans as, alternately, a key player in the late ‘90s/early ‘00s zenith of Saturday Night Live and Cady Heron’s mom in Mean Girls (“This is the fertility vase of the Ndebele tribe — does that mean anything to you?”), Gasteyer has quietly amassed an unparalleled resume on the Great White Way over the last 25 years and counting.

Her credits across the many stages of New York City include Usherette and Columbia in The Rocky Horror Show, Elphaba in Wicked, Queen Aggravain in the 2024 revival of Once Upon a Mattress and more.

“I feel really lucky to be doing my sixth one,” Gasteyer tells Ticketmaster of Schmigadoon!, her next turn on the Broadway stage.

In Schmigadoon!, which begins previews this Saturday, April 4, Gasteyer plays Mildred Layton. Fans of the Apple TV series will recognize the town busybody who acts as not only the morally draconian antagonist for her fellow townspeople, but also for Josh and Melissa, the unwitting, bickering couple who find themselves trapped in the setting of a Golden Age musical — all the way down to the old-fashioned production numbers and hand-painted sets. And the only way out? Well, finding true love, of course.

“It’s not necessarily a willing couple of protagonists, you know?” Gasteyer concedes. “Josh, the male protagonist played by Alex Brightman, is very unwilling to be there. So it kind of speaks to people who hate musicals and who love musicals. Sara Chase [who plays Melissa] put it really, really well. She said, ‘It’s like being in the musical that when you were a kid who dreamed of being on Broadway, you get to be in.’”

Based on the TV show of the same name, which ran for two seasons from 2021 to 2023, Schmigadoon! on Broadway also stars McKenzie Kurtz, Ann Harada, Brad Oscar, Isabelle McCalla, Ivan Hernandez, Maulik Pancholy, Max Clayton and Ayaan Diop. Schmigadoon! will officially have its opening night at the Nederlander Theatre on April 20, bringing the cult-loved musical’s story full circle.

“What I’m really, really excited about, to be honest, is I don’t feel that it’s particularly tethered to the television experience,” Gasteyer says, speaking from her Brooklyn home. “I think if you liked the TV show, I think you’re gonna love the Broadway staging, because it’s living where it always wanted to live.”

Below, Gasteyer dishes with Ticketmaster about playing Schmigadoon!’s resident villain, the doppelgänger diva she had to beat out for the role, why no one seems to remember she played Elphaba (twice!), which of her famous SNL characters would make the best Broadway vocal coach, and more.

Congratulations on Schmigadoon! How have rehearsals been going so far?

So fun. We start tech tonight, so that’s why we had the day [off], we’re switching over to the theater. It’s the fun, inaugural, like, “Oh, this is my dressing room” day.

You’re originating the role of Mildred Layton, who was played by Kristin Chenoweth in the TV series. How would you describe the Broadway version of Mildred?

The character is rooted in [The Music Man’s] Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn, maybe a little bit of Margaret Hamilton for good measure. [Mildred is] the town busybody, that’s a really fun trope in musical theater and musical comedy. So I’m having a really good time just stepping into that.

And “busybody” can often equal “villain” a little bit in the world of musical theater…

I mean, more than a little, yeah! She’s definitely the villain in the way the story’s being told. Which is super fun, because it’s lived on several levels as a musical. It not only has fun with the tropes of musicals, but also within the world of a musical, people discover who they are and they change and they grow. And having a bad guy is critical to that process and that storytelling. She even gets a little bit of a redemptive arc at the end. It’s really, really, really fulfilling, both comedically and creatively.

Does Mildred think that she’s the bad guy?

No, of course not! She follows the Good Book. She’s the moral spine of Schmigadoon.

@schmigadooon

meet mildred layton and her smile that hides a thousand judgments. #schmigadoon #trappedinamusical #musicaltheatre #anagasteyer

♬ original sound – SCHMIGADOON!

So Schmigadoon! is obviously a send-up of Golden Age musicals like Brigadoon, Carousel and other shows from the 1940s and ’50s. Do you have a particular affinity for that era of musical theater?

I absolutely do, it’s the golden era of American musicals. I mean, it’s, you know, R&H [Rodgers and Hammerstein]. I did Once Upon a Mattress last year, which came at the very, very end of that — it was written by Mary Rodgers, Richard Rodgers’ daughter.

I was raised on the golden era musical. I know the canon incredibly well. I did Oklahoma! [in Concert] at Carnegie Hall, that’s how I began my year. And both as a parent and as a person, just watched all those movies growing up and now share them with my family. So, yeah, I love them.

How does Schmigadoon! pay homage to that Golden Age in its stage adaptation?

I don’t even know how publicized they’ve made this but things like… the golden era of it all also is just like a love letter, right? Our scenes, our set design — we have backdrops and flys like old-school musicals that were hand-painted in 2026. So the set itself has been designed with a real love letter to craftsmanship for making theater. And the orchestra has 14 pieces, which is a lot in this day and age for Broadway.

You know, there’s a reason that those Lincoln Center musicals are so beloved — whatever one you see, Ragtime this year or when you saw Carousel, or, you know, those big musicals — you’re like, “I can’t believe I can hear an orchestra that big!” So it’s very, very exciting that there’s a show on Broadway that’s trying hard to live within that classic tradition. Even though it obviously has tons of modern jokes in it, which is, I hope, a recipe for real success for people.

What can you tease about Mildred’s big number in the show?

It’s a really hard song! Mildred’s number is vaguely rooted in… well, you’ll recognize the parody bones from “Trouble in River City” [from The Music Man]. It’s incredible — it is a mouthful and really, really unbelievably fun. Just unbelievably fun. And plays perfectly in terms of the storytelling where it needs to be. So it works really well for the character. And it’s great because this isn’t a show that’s just spending time being a parody. It’s really about a couple that gets caught in a Golden Age musical, so there are Easter eggs and winks for people who know the canon. But musical theater also lives with its own set of rules. If you’re a fan of musical theater, you understand the conventions and what’s expected of the evening. And it delivers on those fronts, so it’s a great show from the standpoint of both being inside and outside musical theater.

It’s also about two people who get trapped inside a musical, so it’s not necessarily a willing couple of protagonists, you know? Josh, the male protagonist played by Alex Brightman, is very unwilling to be there. So it kind of speaks to people who hate musicals and who love musicals. Sara Chase put it really, really well. She said, “It’s like being in the musical that when you were a kid who dreamed of being on Broadway, you get to be in.”

Now, I would love to clear up some behind-the-scenes casting gossip, if I may.

Always.

Is it true that you had to compete with renowned Broadway diva September L. Davis for this role? Because I know she was posting publicly even up until a few days ago about being in talks with director Christopher Gattelli.

[Laughs] Yes. Yes, it’s been a very, very public feud. I respect her tremendously, she is obviously a celebrated Broadway performer. She has incredible experience. I don’t think she’s as familiar with my work as other people have been. But it is my sixth Broadway show. I’m trying to move beyond the gossip and the pettiness. I think… it’s an emotional career and people do experience hurt when they have expectations set. But she’s amazing. She’s got her own work coming up, she’s been doing her own shows. So I wish her the best.

September also claimed on Instagram recently that she has a restraining order against Ann Harada and Brad Oscar, who are in this show with you. So what does your relationship look like with them and how affected were they by that protective order?

They’re the nicest people in show business. So, again, I don’t like to get too involved in drama behind the scenes. I know [September] has her own struggles and her own… she lives out loud a little bit. So I don’t know the backstory there, but I would say I would not necessarily trust everything you see on the internet. You know what I mean?

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by September L Davis (@officialseptemberldavis)

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe your Broadway debut was in the 2000 revival of The Rocky Horror Show.

It was!

What are some of your favorite memories from that experience?

Well, first of all, I’m so excited for the revival this year, my good friend Rachel Dratch is playing the narrator. So I already feel very invested. It was my Broadway debut. I shared a dressing room with Broadway’s beloved Daphne Rubin-Vega. It was just a really, really special time. From that experience — it was between my penultimate and my last season on SNL — I definitely caught the eight-a-week bug and felt like, “Boy, I could do this forever.” I love musicals, I love musical comedy, I love theater. I love the routine. And I have such deep respect for the work ethic.

I say this and it sounds trite, but I just never stop marveling at the privilege of living in this city and the live theatrical experience. It’s really like being at the Olympics. Every show that I do, I find myself interviewing everybody in the cast, just about their journey to Broadway because it’s such a rarefied group of human beings that can sing and I can’t dance, but that can dance the way that the ensemble in Schmigadoon! does. Our ensemble has done 113 shows, I added up, amongst them. It’s like being with professional athletes or something. It’s just such a weird, freakish, mutant skill set… I’m just still so moved to this day that people move to New York City and can do this at the level and the caliber that they do. And it continues to be, frankly, the lowest-paying aspect of show business and probably the hardest-working. So there’s a real humility to the art form and to the community. I’m speaking in a really grand way but that is what I felt initially, even doing Rocky Horror. Just the routine and the discipline and the work ethic of the people around me, and the day-to-day joy of that is extraordinary for me. I feel really lucky to be doing my sixth one.

And even with six Broadway shows under your belt, I actually feel like not enough people know that you played Elphaba in Wicked!

I know, a lot of people don’t know! Because it was pre-internet. My career is now long and a lot of the things I did early were pre-internet. In the old days of the internet and early days of social, there was this inclination to sort of throw the cease-and-desist up every single time. Producers didn’t want their material to be leaked.

It was really interesting doing Once Upon a Mattress last year… the one positive about social media is that you can kind of find your tribe. It’s so fun finding kids from across the United States of America who love musicals and theater, and are connected to being, like, Broadway social kids. There’s a full fandom of people who plan their trips [to New York] and try to see things. So that’s a very fun part of doing theater now versus then, I would say. I mean, there were, like, chatrooms, but there was nothing at the level that there is now in terms of that nurtured fandom. Every now and again someone’ll leak a clip [of her playing Elphaba] because of the movie, and it’s really fulfilling. You look back at your younger self and you’re like, “Wow, that was really hard, I can’t believe I did it. I’m so proud of myself.”

Well, and you did it not once but twice!

Yeah, I originated the role in Chicago and then I did it again on Broadway.

What did playing Elphaba teach you?

I learned a lot about my instrument. When you sing a role that hard every day, it is — again, not in a showoff-y way, but — it’s sort of like being an athlete. Like, you just have to be very, very dialed into your health, your rest, your food, all that stuff. Just calibrating your system to be able to sing that way every single day. ‘Cause that score’s really, really hard. And it’s really, really high. The physical demands of Elphaba are hard. It’s a heavy costume, there’s a lot of running around.

But yeah, I think I learned a lot about my own ability to do things… it’s just an incredible amount of wisdom that you end up gleaning from the day in and day out of that. I also have to say, these are really tight communities. They’re workplaces with incredible consistency and I was taken care of so [well]. I just love that first Wicked company very dearly. We took care of each other on and off stage, and I think that’s something I really, really love about the theater. I love the sort of backstage of it all, too: I love the Saturday night drinks and the Sunday bagels, all those little rituals are really, really special.

So speaking of your physical preparedness, now that you’re prepping for Broadway again…

What am I doing? I’m eating a ham sandwich right now.

Well, I was thinking that you may need a voice teacher. So I wondered which of your SNL characters would make the best vocal coach: Bobbi Mohan-Culp, Cinder Calhoun or Jonette from Gemini’s Twin?

[Laughs] Definitely Bobbi Mohan-Culp! 100 percent. She’s all about breath control.

And she was also just in New York for SNL50…

Yes, which she was very excited by.

What do you think would be in Bobbi’s repertoire for your pre-show warm-ups?

Well, she’s always gonna air towards the more lyrical singers because that’s gonna exercise your range a little bit more. So she’s gonna love a Sabrina Carpenter or a Chappell Roan, just because there’s musicality in there. And there’s melody that you can be warming up against, which is also helpful. But I would say like a Young Miko, just for rap and breath control in terms of what I’m doing in [Schmigadoon!]. Young Miko definitely has a lot of verbal gymnastics, that’s gonna be a good warm-up for my song “Tribulation,” which is lots and lots of words and breath control.

If this all goes well, do you think we can get a Season 2 on Broadway and turn Schmigadoon! into Schmicago?

Oh my god, only if I can be in it. Honestly, I’m sure [Schmigadoon! co-creator, composer and lyricist] Cinco [Paul] would love it. Cinco’s a machine. The guy writes music, I’ve never seen anything like it. He wrote 25 songs for Season 3 before they even made it. And they didn’t make it. So I know that he would love it.

I hope that he’s rewarded for the experience, I hope people like the musical. What I’m really, really excited about, to be honest, is I don’t feel that it’s particularly tethered to the television experience. I think if you liked the TV show, I think you’re gonna love the Broadway staging because it’s living where it always wanted to live. But I also think that if you just like musicals, you’ll also like it, if that makes any sense. I don’t think it’s contingent upon having watched the television show… it does feel like you could bring your grandmother and they would get a kick out of it as much as your boyfriend who thinks musicals are kind of dumb.

Tickets for Schmigadoon! on Broadway are available on Ticketmaster.