Xanadu (musical)

Xanadu
Broadway poster
Music	Jeff Lynne and John Farrar
Lyrics	Jeff Lynne and John Farrar
Book	Douglas Carter Beane
Basis	1980 film Xanadu
Productions	2007 Workshop 2007 Broadway 2009 US Tour 2015 London
Awards	Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical Drama Desk Award for Best Book

Xanadu is a musical comedy with a book by Douglas Carter Beane and music and lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar, based on the 1980 cult classic film of the same name, which was, in turn, inspired by the 1947 Rita Hayworth film Down to Earth, a sequel to the 1941 movie Here Comes Mr. Jordan, which was an adaptation of the play Heaven Can Wait by Harry Segall. The title is a reference to the poem Kubla Khan, or A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Xanadu is the name of the Chinese province where Khan establishes his pleasure garden in the poem.

The musical opened on Broadway in 2007 and ran for over 500 performances. It earned an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical and a Drama Desk Award for Best Book. It was also nominated for Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Book. The US Tour officially began on December 15, 2009, in the Orange County Performing Arts Center. A Korean production has opened, and a national tour and several foreign productions are planned.

The 1980 film on which Xanadu is based barely broke even at the box office and received uniformly unfavorable reviews, but the soundtrack was a commercial hit, as were several of the songs singularly. Although the film was nominated for six Razzies, winning one for worst director, it became a cult classic. Announcements that the film would be adapted as a Broadway show drew skepticism and even derision, even from Carter Beane, who adapted the script.

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