The 1980 film on which Xanadu is based barely recouped its $20 million production budget at the box office and received uniformly unfavorable reviews, but the soundtrack was a commercial hit, as were several of the songs singularly.

[2] The score retains the hits from the film and also includes new arrangements by Eric Stern of "I'm Alive", "Magic", "Suddenly", and "Dancin'", as well as integrating two classic Electric Light Orchestra songs, "Strange Magic" and "Evil Woman", plus Farrar's "Have You Never Been Mellow", a mid-1970s hit for Olivia Newton-John, who starred in the original film.

The musical was first given a workshop production and backers' audition at the Minetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village, New York City, in January 2007, featuring performances by Jane Krakowski, Tony Roberts, and Cheyenne Jackson.

[5] The production included a considerable amount of skating for the characters Kira and Sonny, and the set extended over the orchestra pit partly into the audience.

The opening night cast included Jackson as Sonny Malone, Kerry Butler as Kira, Tony Roberts as Danny Maguire, and Jackie Hoffman and Mary Testa as "evil" Muse sisters, part of a new plot twist introduced in the Broadway version.

Olivia Newton-John (star of the film) and composer John Farrar attended on opening night and joined the cast on stage during the curtain call.

Elizabeth Stanley played Kira, and Max von Essen portrayed Sonny in the La Jolla, Chicago, and Tokyo runs of the production.

[12] It starred Super Junior members Heechul and Kangin rotating in the role of Sonny and played from September 9 to November 23, at Doosan Art Center.

The Australian production opened on March 1, 2011, in a big top called the Grand Xanadu Marquee in the Melbourne Docklands.

The roles of Clio/Kira, Sonny, Danny/Zeus, Calliope/Aphrodite and Melpomene/Medusa were played by Christie Whelan, Sam Ludeman, John McTernan, Susan-Ann Walker, and Cherine Peck, respectively.

The production, directed and choreographed by Nathan M. Wright, starred Jaime Hadwen (Clio/Kira), Ainsley Melham (Sonny), and Rob Thomas (Danny), with Jayde Westaby, Francine Cain, James Maxfield, Dion Bilios, Kay Hoyos, and Catty Hamilton.

It is 1980 and chalk artist Sonny Malone is dissatisfied with his sidewalk mural of the Greek Muses (daughters of Zeus) and determines to kill himself.

On Mount Olympus, Clio (pronounced "Kleye-o"), the youngest, perkiest Muse, convinces her six sisters (two of whom are men in drag), to travel to Venice Beach (rising out of the sidewalk mural) to inspire Sonny ("I'm Alive").

Meanwhile, Sonny finds a good location for the roller disco, a long-abandoned theater in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles called "Xanadu".

Sonny visits hard-hearted Danny in his posh office in downtown Los Angeles and tries to convince him to donate the theater for the roller disco, because it would bring the arts to the Fairfax district and drive up real estate values.

It is then that the evil sisters work their curse, and the winged Eros, along with "Mama Cupid", shoots "Kira" and Sonny with the arrows of love ("Strange Magic").

"Kira" is soon overwhelmed with guilt over her loving feelings and of having created her own art (a hand-drawn picture) alongside Sonny – both violations of Zeus's restrictions on the Muses.

The evil sisters have triumphed ("The Fall"), and Kira sets off for Mount Olympus to receive her punishment from Zeus ("Suspended in Time").

The two evil sisters are displeased, the lovers are reunited, and Zeus reveals what Xanadu is: "True love and the ability to create and share art".

[15] Charles Isherwood, in The New York Times, wrote that the show is "simultaneously indefensible and irresistible... there's so much silly bliss to be had... there is enough first-rate stage talent rolling around in Xanadu to power a season of wholly new, old-school, non-jukebox musicals, if someone would get around to writing a few good ones... the show's winking attitude toward its own aesthetic abjectness can be summed up thus: If you can't beat 'em, slap on some roller skates and join 'em".

Although Isherwood praised most of the cast, he noted that the musical "does have a few dead spots in its brisk 90-minute running time.... Mr. Beane's inspiration seems to have failed him when it came to minting fresh fun from the subplot involving flashbacks to Danny's 1940s romance.

[16] Hilton Als' review in The New Yorker called Xanadu "probably the most fun you'll have on Broadway this season, one reason being that everything about it is so resolutely anti-Broadway.

Here you can't count the disco balls fast enough—not to mention the roller skates, the frosted-pink lips, and the glittering spandex that the director, Christopher Ashley, hurls at you like a PCP flashback.

The video features Tony Award winners Duncan Sheik, Julie White, Beth Leavel, John Cullum, Martin Richards and Carole Shelley.