Around the World (musical)

Around the World
The Playbill for the Adelphi Theatre (May 31, 1946)
Music	Cole Porter
Lyrics	Cole Porter
Book	Orson Welles
Basis	Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
Productions	1946 Broadway

Around the World is a musical based on the Jules Verne novel, Around the World in Eighty Days, with a book by Orson Welles and music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It involves an around-the-world adventure by Phileas Fogg. The expensive musical extravaganza opened on Broadway in May 1946 but it closed after 75 performances.

As he had for his aborted 1938 stage production of Too Much Johnson, Welles shot motion picture sequences that were integrated into Around the World. The film is lost.

After he finished shooting his 1946 film, The Stranger, Orson Welles decided to make a musical out of one of his favorite childhood books, Around the World in Eighty Days. He wanted an entire circus on stage, a train running through the West, and had other extravagant production ideas. He raised money from Mike Todd, the producer William Goetz, and the holder of the European rights to the title, Alexander Korda. However, he had no money left for a star cast and used performers who were not well known. According to Charles Higham (writer of a highly critical Welles biography) "Porter wrote the songs far too quickly and badly".

The show had a cast of 70 and included four mechanical elephants and 54 stage hands. Mike Todd pulled out, and Welles put up his own money. He also borrowed from Columbia Pictures president, Harry Cohn, on a promise to write, produce, direct and star in a film for Cohn for no fee. The result was the 1947 film, The Lady from Shanghai.