Musical Misfires: Three Decades of Broadway Musical Heartbreak

One might think that turning a movie musical into a Broadway musical is a no-brainer. Just take the story, characters, and songs and plop them onto the stage. But musicals conceived with the big screen in mind do not include many of the elements necessary to creating a successful stage musical. Film musicals usually run under two hours, in most cases have six or eight songs, and use visuals to establish character and tell the story. Bringing such a piece into a theatre means not only more song and dance but character development that can hold an audience’s interest over a longer period of time. Add to that the ongoing problem that Hollywood musicals are known for theirs stars, classic songs, and memorable dance sequences. Getting theatergoers to temporarily forget them so they can accept a new vision is far from easy. It does happen on occasion, as with such film-to-stage musical hits as Thoroughly Modern Millie, Mary Poppins, The Who’s Tommy, and the Disney animated musicals. Discussed in this chapter are some of the movie musicals that did not transition successfully to Broadway.

The 1944 MGM movie musical Meet Me in St. Louis is a beloved classic, an intimate portrait of an American family told through four seasons from 1903 to 1904, leading up to the Louisiana Exposition, better known as the St. Louis World’s Fair. Based on a series of short stories by Sally Benson titled “5135 Kensington,” first published in The New Yorker magazine, Meet Me in St. Louis was a musical valentine, brimming with nostalgia for a simpler time. As gently directed and exquisitely designed by Vincente Minnelli, the film was a charming slice of Americana and the perfect vehicle for its star Judy Garland. Meet Me in St. Louis was the second-highest grossing picture of the year and three of its songs by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, “The Boy Next Door,” “The Trolley Song,” and “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” engrained themselves in the collective conscious almost instantly. It is completely understandable that producers would want to bring Meet Me in St. Louis to the Broadway stage.

The Smith Family of 5135 Kensington Avenue in St. Louis, Missouri, is in eager anticipation of the World’s Fair set to be hosted in their home town in the spring of 1904. Esther, the middle child of the Smith brood, is not only atwitter over the forthcoming event, but she also has her eye on her shy next-door neighbor John Truitt. Starting in the summer of 1903, she begins wending her way through a series of awkward stratagems to win his affections (including a rollicking ride onboard a trolley to the see the construction of the fairgrounds). When fall arrives, the Smiths learn that their father has been offered a promotion that would move the clan to New York City, separating Esther from John and possibly keeping the family from attending the fair. Undaunted, Esther continues her efforts to have John fall in love with her. Christmas arrives and the Smiths are gloomy over spending their last holiday in St. Louis. On Christmas Eve, John proposes to Esther and she accepts. Her littlest sister Tootie, however, has a meltdown over the impending move, witnessed by Mr. Smith who has a change of heart. He declares that he will forego his promotion and the family will remain in St. Louis. It is the merriest of Christmases for the Smiths. When spring arrives, they indeed attend the exposition dressed in their finery. Esther and John are arm-in-arm, and the lights of the fair provide the sparkling backdrop to their romantic happily-ever-after.

The film of Meet Me In St. Louis had the three aforementioned Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane numbers, as well as a handful of other American folk and Tin Pan Alley ditties such as “Skip to My Lou,” “Under the Bamboo Tree,” and the title song rounding out the score. It was not, however, a lengthy score and, for Broadway, they were going to need more music. Martin and Blane, who were still alive forty-five years after writing the film score, were brought onboard to compose a dozen new numbers. Their efforts, fun and breezy individually, did little to deepen the story and often slowed down an already inflated production. One song, titled simply “Banjos,” was nothing more than an overwrought, overlong celebration of, you guessed it, banjos. Still, there were charms to be found in a few numbers such as the sentimental “Wasn’t it Fun?,” the Old World flavored “A Touch of the Irish,” and the romantic “Diamonds in the Starlight.”

Casting the central character of Esther Smith would prove to be one of the biggest challenges in putting on a stage adaptation of Meet Me in St. Louis. Judy Garland’s iconic performance as Esther in the film loomed over the production like a specter. How could anyone hope to hold a candle to that distinctive voice or that beguiling performance? A national search was conducted and a young actress named Donna Kane was chosen. Possessing a lovely voice in its own right, and bringing a plucky spunk to the role, Kane did her level best to make the part her own. It was impossible, however, to erase what so many audience members brought with them when they entered the theatre: the memory of Judy and the indelible stamp she had left on their hearts. The rest of the cast did well with what they were given, their characters written like cardboard cutouts of their film counterparts. Stage veterans such as George Hearn, Charlotte Moore, Betty Garrett, and Milo O’Shea in the adult roles deserved better, but they were game for keeping everything light and breezy.

To reimagine Meet Me In St. Louis for the Broadway stage, seasoned book writer Hugh Wheeler, who had done a masterful job adapting Ingmar Bergman’s film Smiles of a Summer Night into A Little Night Music and Christopher Bond’s play Sweeney Todd into a musical of the same name, was enlisted to rework the Irving Brecher and Fred Finklehoffe screenplay. The result was disappointing. Where Meet Me in St. Louis struggled the most in its transition from film to stage was in what it lost: the intimacy. The film was not typical of the MGM spectaculars of its day. It focused on the Smith family, and Minnelli had kept the camera fixed in close-ups and mostly set inside their home. Onstage, an attempt was made to both open up the story as well as capture the film’s opulence. This led to an oversized show, bursting with scenery, and a bump-and-go trolley that worked its way around the stage. The performers got lost amidst the spectacle and size and any nuance the film had achieved was vanquished on the stage. Director Louis Burke served more as a traffic cop, moving actors around the scenery like chess pieces. Choreographer Joan Brickhill, however, provided some energetic choreography, high-stepping chorus numbers and some lovely moments of ballroom dance.

Meet Me in St. Louis opened on Broadway at the Gershwin Theatre on November 2, 1989, perfectly and intentionally timed for the holidays. For the first few months (until the usual January slump) the show enjoyed brisk box office. After that, it began to wane. Critics were mostly dismissive of the musical, feeling as though a Hollywood classic had once again been plunked clumsily down on the stage. Frank Rich of The New York Times queried why anyone would buy tickets for the show when the film (and Garland’s performance) could be watched on video cassette? When the Tony Awards rolled around, Meet Me In St. Louis received four nominations including Best Musical, but these were seen predominantly as “filler” nominations in a lean season. Two other shows, Grand Hotel and City of Angels, were considered far more fresh and imaginative fare. Meet Me In St. Louis went home empty-handed. An extremely restructured version of the stage production of Meet Me in St. Louis, including script rewrites, new songs added, and others excised, was made available for licensing. It has enjoyed success in regional, community, and high school theatres.

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first and only original screen musical was the 1945 20th Century-Fox movie State Fair. It is not surprising that the piece eventually ended up on Broadway; what is surprising is that it took over fifty years! State Fair was similar to the team’s recent Broadway smash Oklahoma! in its midwestern setting, rural characters, and rustic humor. Based on a novel by Philip Stong, which had been made into a non-musical film in 1933, State Fair was lightweight material, to say the least, but the kind that could be easily and effectively musicalized. The resulting movie was a highly entertaining, pleasantly old-fashioned piece of Americana. Hammerstein’s libretto stuck closely to the book and the earlier movie. As the Frake family prepares to leave their farm for the Iowa State Fair, the father Abel makes a bet with a pessimistic neighbor that his boar Blue Boy will win the top prize and that every family member will have a great time at the fair. His wife Melissa is entering her homemade mincemeat in the competition, son Wayne is hoping to win his prizes on the midway, and daughter Margy is looking forward to getting away from her dull fiancé. At the fair Wayne falls into a too-casual romance with a band singer, Emily Edwards, and Margy is attracted to the newsman Pat Gilbert. Although Blue Boy and the mincemeat both win ribbons, the younger Frakes are less lucky in love. The already-already-married Emily realizes she has no future with the naive Wayne and Pat rushes off when he learns of a job at a Chicago newspaper. Returning home, Wayne happily goes back to his old girl friend. Abel claims his bet and, when Margy hears from Pat that he wants to marry her, she is overjoyed, so the neighbor admits that all had a good time at the fair and pays up

Charles Winninger, a film father favorite going back to the screen Show Boat in 1936, was ideally cast as Abel Frake in the musical version of State Fair. Fox wanted their in-house ingenue Alice Faye for his daughter Margy. Faye surprised the studio and the world by abruptly retiring in 1944, so up-and-coming Jeanne Crain was cast, even though her singing had to be dubbed. The rising singing star Dick Haymes was chosen to play her brother and the erstwhile maternal actress Fay Bainter played their mother. To contrast the folksy Frake family, Dana Andrews and Vivian Blaine brought a tough, urban edge to the characters that the Frake siblings fall in love with. State Fair did not require a full Broadway-like score so Rodgers and Hammerstein made sure each song counted, from the opening “Our State Fair” that introduces the family as the song bounces through the household, to the merry “All I Owe Ioway,” a sillier version of the boastful “Oklahoma.” The numbers for the city characters had a touch of swing and jazz and Rodgers wrote one of his most infectious waltz melodies for “It’s a Grand Night for Singing.” The highlight of the superb score is “It Might As Well Be Spring,” a tender character song that would not be out of place in a more adventurously integrated musical. The number became the most famous in the popular score, winning the Academy Award for Best Song.

In the 1960s, most studios were remaking their old black and white pictures so it was not surprising that in 1962 Fox wanted a new, colorful State Fair with a young cast that would appeal to the ever-younger moviegoers. The new version expanded the screenplay, padding out the thin story to nearly two hours, re-orchestrated some of the numbers to make them sound more contemporary, and added five new songs. Since Hammerstein had died in 1960, the screenplay was by studio writers who reset the tale in Texas because that location was considered less cornfed than Iowa. Rodgers wrote both music and lyrics for the new numbers, none of them coming anywhere near the quality of the originals in either music or lyrics. Character actor Tow Ewell was well cast as the father and the studio pulled off a real coup in getting Alice Faye to come out of seventeen years of retirement to play the mother. Popular singers (but limited actors) Pat Boone (Wayne) and Bobby Darin (Pat) were paired with the vivacious Ann-Margaret (Emily) and the vapid Pamela Tiffin (Margy) and there wasn’t a spark of chemistry in the whole quartet. The new State Fair was meant to be a 1960s pop musical and as such it did very well at the box office.

Although it was seen on the screen twice, State Fair did not appear on stage until a 1969 production at the St. Louis Municipal Opera. The two screenplays were turned into a stage libretto and songs from both movie versions were used. The “Muny” being a huge outdoor theatre, real animals could be used (including the prize hog Blue Boy) and the fair midway was recreated on the mammoth stage. Because of its large scale, few other theatres considered producing the stage State Fair until a rewritten, scaled-down version arrived on Broadway twenty-seven years later. This version came from the most unlikely of sources. By 1996, most theatregoers assumed the old and venerated Theatre Guild was dead, not having seen its name on a playbill for several seasons. The organization existed on paper at least and the remaining Guild directors decided to once again produce a new Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. (It was the Guild who had first presented the duo’s Oklahoma!, Carousel, and Allegro.) This stage version of State Fair was put together to tour the country and was less than Broadway quality in its sets and costumes. Familiar personalities John Davidson and Kathryn Crosby were cast as the parents to appeal to the regional audiences but the younger characters were played by Broadway pros Donna McKechnie (Emily), Andrea McArdle (Margy), Scott Wise (Pat), and Ben Wright (Wayne). The Guild liked what they saw and wanted it on Broadway, but the funds were not there until veteran producer David Merrick, who also hadn’t been represented on Broadway for several seasons, came up with the cash and New York saw a “new” Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.

When the show opened on Broadway on March 27, 1996, critics complained about the threadbare road production and declared the libretto dated without being charming. Perhaps the harshest criticism came from Jeremy Gerard in Variety who pulled no punches, stating, “Innocuous and empty-headed, State Fair tries awfully hard to please, but the joy it offered in 1945 was ersatz, and the joy it offers today is ersatz in amber.” Yet the score was not to be dismissed, featuring not only numbers from both movie versions but also lesser-known songs from the team’s Me and Juliet, Allegro, Pipe Dream and even two songs cut from Oklahoma!: “Boys and Girls Like You and Me” and “When I Go Out Walking With My Baby.” Randy Skinner provided the energetic choreography and co-directed with Oscar’s son James Hammerstein, and the result was far from the yawn that the critics declared. The production held on for fifteen weeks then closed deep in the red. The Tony Award committee nominated State Fair for Best Original Score based on the four Rodgers and Hammerstein songs never heard on Broadway before. Merrick, feisty as ever in his final days, sued the Tony Awards for not considering the entire score; it went to court and he lost. Also nominated was Scott Wise for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. The stage State Fair marked the end of two long and notable careers, those of Merrick and the Theatre Guild. The idea of a “new” Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that was suitable for summer stock and schools struck the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization as a possible gold mine and they were not shy in promoting the show to their many customers. Although it is far from joining the ranks of The Sound of Music and Oklahoma!, the stage version of State Fair has entered the repertory of oft-produced Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals.

By the time High Society opened on Broadway in 1998, it had a sixty-year history and a rather classy pedigree. From a classic high comedy on Broadway to a memorable star-studded Hollywood film to a dazzling Cole Porter movie musical, the property had enjoyed quite a run of good fortune. But such luck did not continue with the stage musical version despite a lot of talent involved and an encouraging track record on its way to Broadway. It all started with Philip Barry’s 1939 play The Philadelphia Story, a sophisticated and delectable American comedy of manners. The basic plot (and many of the witty lines) would remain unchanged through the piece’s many transformations. On the eve of her wedding to the stuffy millionaire George Kittridge, the spoiled heiress Tracy Lord is visited in her Philadelphia Mainline mansion by two men who give her second thoughts. One is her ex-husband, C.K. Dexter Haven, who is still liked by Tracy’s family, particularly her younger sister Dinah. The other man is the radical journalist Mike Connor who has come with the wisecracking photographer Liz Imbrie to cover the wedding for a popular magazine. To avoid a scandal, the family pretends that Uncle Willie is really Tracy’s father because her real father is off philandering with a chorus girl in New York. Although Tracy and her riches represent everything he is against, Mike is drawn to her and the two go off for a midnight swim. George is shocked, breaks off the engagement, and Dexter rescues the day by offering to marry Tracy once again since they obviously still love each other. Katharine Hepburn had played Tracy on Broadway and in the popular 1940 film, thereby resurrecting her Hollywood career. Her co-stars on screen were Cary Grant (Dexter) and James Stewart (Mike) and the movie, despite a few minor changes, was as brilliant as the play.

Sixteen years later MGM tempted fate by turning The Philadelphia Story into a movie musical, hoping that audiences would (temporarily) forget the famous Hepburn film. First of all, they changed the title to High Society. To write an original score, they hired Cole Porter, the perfect songwriter for the Barry material. Going in a totally different direction than Hepburn, the studio cast Grace Kelly who was so different in her sex appeal and classiness that she made her own Tracy work. For her leading men, MGM brought in major musicals stars. Bing Crosby played Dexter, now a songwriter who loves jazz, and Frank Sinatra was cast as the journalist Mike. The location was changed from Philadelphia to Newport, Rhode Island, in order to include the famous jazz festival and to give an excuse for Louis Armstrong to stop by. Some of the Barry wit was sacrificed when screenwriter John Patrick abridged the original but Porter’s lyrics were pretty witty in themselves. The score is arguably the finest set of songs Porter ever wrote for one movie, from the lyrical ballads “True Love’ and “You’re Sensational” to the tongue-in-cheek character songs “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and “Well, Did You Evah?” (the last from a Porter stage score). Perhaps the highlight of this musical feast was Crosby and Armstrong bringing down the house with “Now You Has Jazz.” Singing and joking and making love, the cast is in superb form and the chemistry between Kelly and both Crosby and Sinatra makes the triangle all the more intriguing. (This was Kelly’s last film; she retired after filming was complete to become the Princess of Monaco.) Charles Walters directed with a touch of class of his own and High Society was a hit in 1956.

Jump ahead another thirty-one years and the first stage version of High Society was seen in London’s West End with Natasha Richardson playing Tracy. Richard Eyre adapted the screenplay into a libretto using Porter’s songs and it ran 420 performances during the 1987-1988 London season. But that production had nothing to do with a version that was being prepared for Broadway in San Francisco in 1997. This adaptation was written by Arthur Kopit who reset the action at a Long Island mansion and added Porter songs from various sources to fill out the score. Because some of these did not quite fit the story or characters, Susan Birkenhead had the unenviable task of writing some new lyrics for Porter’s music. This High Society tried out at the American Conservatory Theatre and was well received by the press and the public, its original engagement extended because of the demand for tickets. Christopher Renshaw directed and the little choreography needed was done by Lar Lubovitch. Although the goal was Broadway, no stars were hired but it was indeed a very talented cast. Melissa Errico did her own take on Tracy, Stephen Bogardus was the radical-thinking Mike, and Daniel McDonald was Dexter. There were equally superb performers in the supporting roles, including Randy Graff (Liz), Marc Kudisch (George) and Lisa Banes (Mrs. Lord), but the two who stole all their scenes was the very young Anna Kendrick as Dinah and the far-from-young John McMartin as Uncle Willie. High Society smelled like a hit and the advance buzz in New York was very encouraging.

Unfortunately, in previews on Broadway it became clear that the musical was lacking the sophistication and glamour of the movie. Scenes were rewritten, new songs and lyrics added and others cut, and Renshaw and Lubovitch were replaced by director Des McAnuff and choreographer Wayne Cilento. All the changes were in vain for when High Society opened on April 27, 1998, the reviews were not favorable. Ben Brantley in The New York Times wrote, “The production's guiding rule appears to be to do whatever is necessary to land a joke or to sell a song … Numbers that should bubble with dry effervescence are more likely to come across as a thick ferment of suds.” Errico was deemed talented and energetic but far from the high society Tracy who undergoes a rather significant transition in the story. It became obvious in the large St. James Theatre that this was a musical that demanded a marquee-level star. McDaniel was genial but lacked any sense of aristocratic grace while Bogardus at least carried off the rough-edged Mike. The only performers to be unanimously extolled were McMartin and Kendrick; they later received the show’s only Tony Award nominations. Although High Society was packed with some terrific Porter songs, often they stopped or slowed down the plot, making the musical seem longer than it actually was. There was also criticism about the cartoonish sets and costumes, definitely offering a musical comedy world rather than an upper class environment. High Society struggled to run four months on Broadway but it enjoyed a bit of an afterlife elsewhere. A British production in 2004 played at the Open Air Theatre at Regent’s Park, London, then toured, then played in the West End for three months. Also in London, a well-received 2015 revival by the Old Vic Theatre featured Maria Friedman as Tracy. In the States, some regional theatres have picked up High Society and had success with it. Combining random Porter songs with Philip Barry’s sparkling comedy sounds like such a good idea but it just didn’t work. The same thing happened back in 1980 when Barry’s play Holiday was turned into the musical Happy New Year with Porter songs and only ran 25 performances on Broadway. John McMartin might have suspected such; he was in that production as well.

The 1977 Paramount film Saturday Night Fever was a prime example of the new Hollywood musical. None of the characters sang but the soundtrack pulsated with music that was necessary mostly for dance. The movie was a giant hit, made a screen star of John Travolta, and gave disco dancing a much-needed lift. Norman Wexler’s screenplay, inspired by a New York Magazine article about a Brooklyn disco, centered on the restless youth Tony Manero (Travolta) who has a dead-end job working in a paint store by day and finds trouble with gangs and girls at night. Yet on Saturday nights he transforms into a dance sensation at the local disco club and finds some fleeting joy and meaning to his life. The story followed Tony’s ambiguous relationship with the ambitious dancer Stephanie Mangano (Karen Lynn Gorney) who degrades his lifestyle but serves as his dancing partner so that they can win a couples contest at the disco. They win but Tony, having watched his equally dissatisfied pal Bobby (Barry Miller) commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, realizes his Saturday night glory is not the answer. The plot may have resembled a 1950s urban melodrama but Travolta’s magnetic performance and the Bee Gee’s explosive disco music on the soundtrack made it all seem new and exciting. Lester Wilson staged the vibrant disco dancing and John Badham’s direction went right to the nerve. The soundtrack included such hits as “Staying Alive,” “More Than a Woman,” and “How Deep Is Your Love?” by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. (The album climbed the charts.) Saturday Night Fever was one of the most musical films of the 1970s even as it broke the rules of what a movie musical was.

With such vibrant music and so many opportunities for dance, Saturday Night Fever seemed a natural for Broadway. But the creators of the stage adaptation made some errors in judgment, the most damaging one being to turn the pop songs heard in the film into musical theatre numbers sung by characters. Not only did they not fit but many of the popular songs were less effective when bent to fit situations and characters that were not in mind when the numbers were written. Several additional songs (“Disco Duck,” “Boogie Shoes,” “Disco Inferno,” and “Open Sesame”) by various songwriters were added but they seemed just as out of place and didn’t have the propulsive power of the screen songs. The story was kept in 1977 to justify the popularity of disco music and dancing and the movie’s harsh treatment of sex, violence, and drugs was softened in the libretto by Nan Knighton. Bobby still jumped off the bridge which seemed to make no sense since he had just participated in a joyous production number. The dramatics in the screenplay often came off as cheap melodramatics on stage. Only when the show danced did it come truly alive. Saturday Night Fever opened in London in May of 1998 with Adam Garcia (Tony) and Anita Louise Combe (Stephanie) heading the cast. Arlene Phillips directed and choreographed the Robert Stigwood production which ran a year and a half in the huge London Palladium. The critics were not enthusiastic but audiences were and the large venue often sold out during its first year. While the show was still running in the West End, the Broadway production opened on October 21, 1999, with James Carpinello (Tony) and Paige Price (Stephanie) in the leading roles. Phillips again directed and choreographed and again the press was severe in its criticism. The major complaint was the way the songs frequently did not fit the characters or the situations. Only the talented cast and Phillips’ lively disco dancing were applauded by the critics. Audiences were less particular and enjoyed hearing the song favorites and reliving the disco era. Saturday Night Fever ran fourteen months but rarely filled the large Minskoff Theatre, so it closed in the red after 501 performances. It received no Tony Award nominations. Yet the show has enjoyed a lucrative life on tour in Great Britain and the States, with productions also in nations as far-flung as South Africa, Argentina, South Korea, and Spain.

Trying to turn successful movie musicals into Broadway shows has been going on for several decades but it is rare for a film musical that tanked at the box office to be taken up and turned into a stage piece. Such was the case with Xanadu, Universal’s 1980 cinema dud which was reimagined by some clever artists into a delightful Broadway musical satire. Richard Christian Danus and Marc Reid Rubel concocted the hare-brained screenplay about the frustrated artist Sonny Malone who is inspired by the muse Clio, who comes down to earth as the mortal Kira, to open a roller disco in Southern California. He enlists the help of the millionaire Danny Maguire whom Clio had once inspired years ago to go into performing but he settled for business. Clio is not allowed to fall in love with any mortal so when Kira does have human feelings for Sonny she abandons him and returns to Olympus. Danny intercedes and Zeus makes Clio mortal so she and Sonny are together the day the roller disco opens with a splash. It was all fluffy nonsense and, less forgivable, it took itself seriously. The Australian pop singer Olivia Newton-John, highly popular because of her chart records and her recent success in the screen version of Grease, was cast as Clio/Kira. Her acting abilities, which had been suspect before, were negligible in Xanadu and she and the bland Michael Beck as Sonny made a lifeless, vapid couple. The renowned Gene Kelly (in his last screen musical) agreed to play Danny and insisted on choreographing his Big Band number “Whenever You’re Away from Me” which he performed with Newton-John. With the rest of the score being disco, the number seemed out of place but mildly enjoyable. Yet throughout much of the movie Kelly seemed tired and a bit embarrassed, which he had every right to be. The staging of the other musical numbers by Jerry Trent and Kenny Ortega was inventive and, in their own weird way, beautiful. The same could be said for some of the production values. The roller disco palace alone cost $1 million. Director Robert Greenwald got a bit carried away and the musical, budgeted at $4 million, ended up costing around $13 million (some estimates run as high as $20 million). The critical reaction when the movie opened in 1980 was vicious, the critics castigating the romantic leads, the cockeyed story, and the way the pretentious movie took itself so seriously. Audiences agreed and Xanadu continues to this day to make the lists of worst film musicals put out by critics and moviegoers. In fact, Xanadu inspired the creation of the annual Golden Raspberry Awards (better known today as the Razzies) to recognize the most awful films of the year.

What was not rejected by the press or the public was the soundtrack score. Only the pulsating title song was written specifically for Xanadu. The vibrant “I’m Alive,” the pleading “Don’t Walk Away,” the intoxicating “All Over the World,” and the desperate “The Fall” were written earlier by Jeff Lynne and performed by his Electric Light Orchestra and used in the film. John Farrar contributed the first-rate “Magic,” “Suddenly,” “Dancin’,” and “Suspended in Time” for Newton-John to sing, as well as the pastiche 1940s number “Whenever You’re Away from Me” for her and Kelly. The public ignored the movie Xanadu but they bought the soundtrack album by the thousands and five of the songs became top singles. Over time, Xanadu became a camp classic of sorts and a cult following developed. Playwright Douglas Carter Beane was fascinated with the movie and loved the songs but saw a stage version as a very different thing. The film just screams of the 1980s, from the disco rage to the roller skating to the fascination with mythological fantasy, in particular the 1981 movie Clash of the Titans. Beane fashioned a libretto that retained the earthbound plot of Xanadu and added a second level dealing with the Greek gods and the muses. In the stage musical, Clio’s sister muses Melpomene and Calliope are jealous of the special attention Zeus always gives Clio so they use their magic powers to make her fall in love with a mortal. Such a thing is forbidden by Mount Olympus and means certain death. Their plot seems to work yet in the madcap revelations at the end, it turns out Clio was impervious to their magic and it was true love after all so Zeus forgives her. Beane’s libretto was completely different from the film in tone and attitude. A spoof of the 1980s sensibility and the pretentious quest for art that resulted in movies like Xanadu, the stage musical was a thorough, if guilty, pleasure. Kerry Butler was a spacey yet knowing Clio whose fake Australian accent, playfully mocking Newton-John, when she becomes Kira was as appealing as it was outrageous. Cheyenne Jackson, as the thickheaded artist Sonny, was amusing with his featherbrained dreams of creating art by opening a roller disco. Tony Roberts was no Gene Kelly but at least he didn’t look embarrassed as Danny and seemed to be having a lot of fun returning to his past. Adding to the silliness were the muses, four women and two affected men who found the humans as silly as the script and relished the roller skating and dancing like children in a playpen. Mary Testa and Jackie Hoffman stole the show as the jealous Melpomene and Calliope, their plotting evil doings with cackling glee. Christopher Ashley was the clever director and Dan Knechtges did the goofy choreography which included a good deal of roller skating in a small space.

Xanadu was not a large production. The sets and costumes were modest but inventive. And the actors doubled and tripled to keep the company total down to eleven performers. After some readings, the musical workshopped at the intimate Minetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village in January of 2007. Jane Krakowski was the original Clio but a television commitment did not allow her to do the Broadway production. She was replaced by Kerry Butler who had found recognition in Bat Boy and Hairspray. Cheyenne Jackson also left the show after the workshop to make a movie and John Carpinello was slated to play Sonny on Broadway. But during previews Carpinello injured his foot doing a roller skating number and Andre Ward and Curtis Holbrook alternated in playing the role until Jackson eventually finished his movie and was able to return to the production less than a week before opening night. Xanadu opened in the small Helen Hayes Theatre on July 10, 2007, to rapturous reviews. Variety called it “ninety minutes of souped-up silliness and broad comedy,” Newsday declared the show “a grand little piece of smart dumb fun,” and The New Yorker called Xanadu “ridiculously brilliant, so lavish and sublime a confection … it's probably the most fun you'll have on Broadway this season, one reason being that everything about it is so resolutely anti-Broadway.” Most critics were surprised that such an infamous movie could become such splendid musical comedy entertainment. The satire on the 1980s (and on the conventions of musical theatre itself) were not lost on the reviewers and both young and older audiences found the sly and sometimes cheesy humor to their liking. Once again, the score shown brightly. Jeff Lynne’s past hit “Evil Woman” was added and given to the two jealous muses and it was a showstopper. The old Newton-John hit “Have You Never Been Mellow?” by Farrar was sung by Clio and the gods to soften the heart of Zeus (also played by Roberts). A Lynne favorite from the 1970s, “Strange Magic,” was another interpolation that was very welcome. The rest of the score came from the film and it was as wonderful as ever. Despite such good notices, strong word or mouth, and four Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical, Xanadu was a difficult show to sell in a competitive season. And when it did sell out, the small size of the theatre (583 seats) limited the box office gross. (David Gallo’s inventive scenic design allowed seating on the stage for a few dozen spectators, creating a theatre-in-the-round feeling of intimacy.) Xanadu ran fourteen months on Broadway without making a profit. A national tour in 2008 was reasonably successful but a second tour in 2019 was cancelled because the presale was so weak. There have been international productions in Great Britain, Japan, Australia, the Philippines, and South Korea. Across America, regional theatres are slowly discovering this sparkling and sassy little musical with a score that crosses the generations.