From Razzie to Tony

The 1980 film Xanadu — you know, the one with Olivia Newton-John as an Olympian muse who roller-skates out of a mural/portal and saves art as we know it — was considered so bad that an entire bad-movie awards show was created because of it. The candy-colored, ELO-scored fantasy ended up birthing the Golden Raspberry Awards, with its director, future political muckraker Robert Greenwald, taking home the Worst Director honor. But history has been kind to a project once short-listed as the Worst Movie Ever Made; it’s circled back around from awful to genius, developing a cult following and spawning a Tony-nominated Broadway musical in 2007. Perhaps the movie’s early stigma remained; it’s been five years, and the musical has never toured South Florida. It took a brave regional theater company, West Boca’s Slow Burn, to snatch it up and slate it for this summer as soon as the royalties became available. “If you know the movie, you’ll laugh, because it stays true to the movie,” says Slow Burn’s director, Patrick Fitzwater. “It’s very over-the-top, very colorful, very rock ’n’ roll… It’s a fun night.” The show opens tonight and runs until July 1 at West Boca Performing Arts Theatre, 12811 W. Glades Road, Boca Raton. Tickets cost $20 to $35. Call 866-811-4111, or visit slowburntheatre.org.
Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Starts: June 22. Continues through July 1, 2012