Xanadu

After starting with Cole Porter's classic "Anything Goes," then moving to the hilariously horny puppets of "Avenue Q," Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre closes its diverse 2012 season with "Xanadu," the 1980 film disaster converted into a 2007 Broadway roller disco hit. This summer's productions offered something for every taste, from classic Broadway to weird coming-of-age to the absurdity of a Greek muse turned Australian roller girl banished from...

After starting with Cole Porter's classic "Anything Goes," then moving to the hilariously horny puppets of "Avenue Q," Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre closes its diverse 2012 season with "Xanadu," the 1980 film disaster converted into a 2007 Broadway roller disco hit. This summer's productions offered something for every taste, from classic Broadway to weird coming-of-age to the absurdity of a Greek muse turned Australian roller girl banished from...

WASHINGTON -- Mills Corp., a Chevy Chase shopping-mall developer that has lost more than half its market value this year, has secured financing for its Meadowlands Xanadu project in New Jersey, clearing the way for a possible sale of the company. Colony Capital, based in Los Angeles, will provide as much as $500 million of equity financing and arrange for construction loans to fund the balance of the expected $2 billion cost of the Xanadu project, Mills said yesterday. Mills' shares jumped 15.3 percent on the announcement, which comes less than a week after New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine said the state would try to help save Xanadu.

Summer arrives early in the state capital with the opening of the Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre's 46th season of presenting "theater under the stars," which begins May 24 with Cole Porter's classic "Anything Goes. " The musical, the updated, 2011 Tony Award-winner, will run Thursdays through Sundays through June 24. Following it are two shows that have never been performed at Summer Garden. Taking ASGT's outdoor stage July 5 to July 29 is "Avenue Q," the 2003 surprise Broadway hit that captured three Tony Awards, including best musical.

This is what I know. When you ask to go backstage to congratulate any or all of the cast members in the musical Xanadu, you are advised that they dress and undress together in a very small space and there's no room for anyone to "visit" with them. So last week, when some of the women of the Wowowow Web site wanted to greet their member, Whoopi Goldberg, after the show, we and our men folk had to stand near the stage, still in the audience, after the crowd filed out. In time, the cast of Xanadu trooped out to mix and mingle with us. There was the sexy all-American leading man, Cheyenne Jackson, who declared, "Well, tonight was sure boys' night out" in this theater.

Summer arrives early in the state capital with the opening of the Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre's 46th season of presenting "theater under the stars," which begins May 24 with Cole Porter's classic "Anything Goes. " The musical, the updated, 2011 Tony Award-winner, will run Thursdays through Sundays through June 24. Following it are two shows that have never been performed at Summer Garden. Taking ASGT's outdoor stage July 5 to July 29 is "Avenue Q," the 2003 surprise Broadway hit that captured three Tony Awards, including best musical.

It is tempting to see Mills Corp.'s travails as a retail parable, a warning of long-predicted consumer collapse. Shoppers are hocked to the eyeballs, and at some point they'll stop spending, the argument goes. Who might be more vulnerable to the beginning of the retail meltdown than the mall company known for such frivolities as glow-in-the-dark minigolf, bass ponds and a movie complex from Egypt's 19th dynasty? Fortunately, Mills' problems seem to be more about Mills than its customers.

LAS VEGAS - Madrid has museums and bullfights, but what people for miles around the Spanish capital have really hungered for, in Larry Siegel's view, is a mall unlike one they've ever seen. Yesterday, the chairman of the Mills Corp., builder of Arundel Mills, peddled his company's vision to American retailers gathered here for the International Council of Shopping Centers convention. Madrid Xanadu - thought to be the first major retail project in Europe by a U.S. developer - is expected to pave the way for at least five more entertainment-infused Mills malls across Spain and Italy.

Mills Corp. shares plunged to a 5 1/2 -year low yesterday after the developer said earnings restatements are likely to reduce net income by $210 million, and the cost of a New Jersey project has soared to $2 billion. Mills shares fell $6.68, or 29 percent, to $15.91. Shares of the Chevy Chase-based company, which owns Arundel Mills and other very large malls, have dropped 62 percent this year, compared with an 11 percent increase in the Bloomberg Real Estate Investment Trust Index. Mills, the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission accounting investigation, said in a filing yesterday that cost overruns at its Xanadu entertainment development at the New Jersey Meadowlands Sports Complex would push the price to $2 billion from its earlier $1.3 billion estimate.

NEW YORK -- A top investor in Mills Corp., the developer behind the stalled $2 billion New Jersey mall project known as Meadowlands Xanadu, sued to force the company to hold its annual meeting and again warned it not to pursue a sale. The Delaware suit was filed by Gazit-Globe Ltd., Israel's largest real estate investment company, which recently increased its stake in Mills to 9.7 percent. Gazit-Globe said in a regulatory filing that it wants the meeting because management has ignored Gazit's proposal to invest as much as $1.2 billion in the company.

Fans of Annapolis native and longtime local leading man David Bosley-Reynolds can catch his Olympian performance as Zeus along with his dual role as solid businessman Danny Maguire in Toby's Baltimore Dinner Theatre's area premiere of "Xanadu. " Always charismatic — beginning with the Chesapeake Music Hall, the Annapolis dinner theater that closed in 2004 — Bosley-Reynolds' memorable performances included his nuanced characterization of Jud in "Oklahoma," his Cowardly Lion in "The Wizard of Oz," his Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof" and his Fred Graham in "Kiss Me Kate" — the final Music Hall performance.

It's hard to believe that the 1980 movie "Xanadu" could have the potential to make anything other than a worst-movies list, but this cinematic flop magically served as the inspiration for a successful Broadway musical in 2007. Provided you're in the mood for what amounts to summer camp, "Xanadu" is silly fun at Toby's Baltimore Dinner Theatre. The movie's plot about an ancient Greek muse inspiring a modern American painter was so stupid that not even chart-topping Olivia Newton-John and the venerable Gene Kelly could save it. Although the movie bombed, it developed a cult following that must have encompassed, oh, at least a few dozen people nationwide.

This is what I know. When you ask to go backstage to congratulate any or all of the cast members in the musical Xanadu, you are advised that they dress and undress together in a very small space and there's no room for anyone to "visit" with them. So last week, when some of the women of the Wowowow Web site wanted to greet their member, Whoopi Goldberg, after the show, we and our men folk had to stand near the stage, still in the audience, after the crowd filed out. In time, the cast of Xanadu trooped out to mix and mingle with us. There was the sexy all-American leading man, Cheyenne Jackson, who declared, "Well, tonight was sure boys' night out" in this theater.

HAPPINESS IS having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city," said George Burns. Well, our friend Whoopi Goldberg has knocked the Broadway musical Xanadu up several big notches. It is finally getting the responsive audiences it deserves. Even Variety took notice last week of how the Whoop put the whoopee into this Tony-nominated, but sometimes neglected and enjoyable, romp. She'll be rolling around onstage at the Helen Hayes Theatre through Sept. 7. Cafe reopening I ran into the genial, good-hearted Drew Nieporent - restaurateur extraordinary - while sitting on a park bench waiting to enter Mayor Michael Bloomberg's party for Sen. Hillary Clinton.

NEW YORK -- A top investor in Mills Corp., the developer behind the stalled $2 billion New Jersey mall project known as Meadowlands Xanadu, sued to force the company to hold its annual meeting and again warned it not to pursue a sale. The Delaware suit was filed by Gazit-Globe Ltd., Israel's largest real estate investment company, which recently increased its stake in Mills to 9.7 percent. Gazit-Globe said in a regulatory filing that it wants the meeting because management has ignored Gazit's proposal to invest as much as $1.2 billion in the company.

WASHINGTON -- Mills Corp., a Chevy Chase shopping-mall developer that has lost more than half its market value this year, has secured financing for its Meadowlands Xanadu project in New Jersey, clearing the way for a possible sale of the company. Colony Capital, based in Los Angeles, will provide as much as $500 million of equity financing and arrange for construction loans to fund the balance of the expected $2 billion cost of the Xanadu project, Mills said yesterday. Mills' shares jumped 15.3 percent on the announcement, which comes less than a week after New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine said the state would try to help save Xanadu.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- More than 100 acres of the New Jersey Meadowlands would be developed as a family entertainment complex with an indoor ski slope, indoor surfing, a Formula One racetrack, a minor league baseball stadium and office towers, under a $1.3 billion redevelopment plan chosen recently by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. The project, called Meadowlands Xanadu, is the proposal of the Mills Corp., the Virginia-based mall developer, and the Mack Cali Realty Corp.

"In Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure dome decree:Where Alph, the sacred river, ranThrough caverns measureless to manDown to a sunless sea.So twice five miles of fertile groundWith walls and towers were girdled round."-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge Substitute Northern Virginia for Xanadu, the intelligence community for Kubla Khan, and the Potomac for the Alph, and, in the imaginativemusings of Sen. Max Baucus, you have the "remarkable" new headquarters of the National Reconnaissance Office, the nation's most secretive and expensive spy agency.

Mills Corp. shares plunged to a 5 1/2 -year low yesterday after the developer said earnings restatements are likely to reduce net income by $210 million, and the cost of a New Jersey project has soared to $2 billion. Mills shares fell $6.68, or 29 percent, to $15.91. Shares of the Chevy Chase-based company, which owns Arundel Mills and other very large malls, have dropped 62 percent this year, compared with an 11 percent increase in the Bloomberg Real Estate Investment Trust Index. Mills, the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission accounting investigation, said in a filing yesterday that cost overruns at its Xanadu entertainment development at the New Jersey Meadowlands Sports Complex would push the price to $2 billion from its earlier $1.3 billion estimate.