Around the World in 80 Days (musical version, Jules Verne): Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air, 1946

The Complete Orson Welles

This week is the first production from, The Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air, with an adaptation of the Jules Verne novel from 1873, Around the World in Eighty Days. This is the musical short version, sometime later he did a non-musical version that was an hour. I strongly prefer the second version.

Music by Cole Porter. Cast includes: Orson Welles (Fix), Arthur Margetson (Phileas Fogg), Larry Laurence (Passepartout), Mary Healy (Princess Aouda), Julie Warren (Molly Muggins).

This is the greatly shortened version of the Broadway play that Welles produced. The expensive musical extravaganza opened on Broadway in May 1946 but closed after 75 performances. The Broadway show was considered a huge flop.

After New York drama critic Robert Garland wrote disdainfully that the show had "everything but the kitchen sink", Welles had a kitchen sink brought to him onstage during his curtain speech.

Although Broadway audiences reportedly loved Around the World, its precarious finances—and the theatre's inadequate air conditioning—could not sustain it through the summer, and Welles was forced to close it. He personally lost an estimated $320,000 (equivalent to $4,450,000 in 2021) on the production. Due to bad legal advice, he was unable to claim the loss on his taxes, and it took him many years to pay the debt. [some notes here from Wikipedia]

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