Xanadu, the musical based on the infamous 1980 movie of the same name starring Olivia Newton-John opened last night at the Helen Hayes Theater to enthusiastic reviews. The movie was a campy nightmare for critics and most movie goers, and put a halt to the movie/musical genre for about two decades. But Xanadu’s saving grace was several chart topping tunes including it’s title song "Xanadu," making it a prime choice for a jukebox musical.

After the screenplay, about an Australian-accented, rollerskating muse who visits an uninspired artist and convinces him to build a roller disco called Xanadu, got a very funny facelift by Little Dog Laughed playwright Douglas Carter Beane, the stage show was ready to roll (quite literally -- all the actors are on skates). Xanadu stars Cheyenne Jackson (Chad in All Shook Up) who bravely filled original star James Carpinello’s skates after he broke his foot during previews, and Kerry Butler in the Olivia Newton-John role, along with Broadway vets Tony Roberts, Mary Testa and Jackie Hoffman.

The standout for me however is Curtis Holbrook, who plays the comic muse as well as a few other roles. He has a tap number with Tony Roberts that blew me away during the press preview in the spring and I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind since. And I’m not alone. Joe Dziemianowicz from The Daily News said, “there are several TiVo-worthy moments I'd watch over and over. In one, Tony Roberts, who plays a musician Kira influenced in the 1940s, recalls himself as a young man played by the fleet-footed Curtis Holbrook."

Xanadu is his sixth Broadway show and he’s only 25! They don’t make ‘em like this anymore. When he was dancing I barely looked at anything else on stage. After one of the early previews we sat down backstage (where he was alerted there were young girls waiting outside to get his autograph) and chatted about his upcoming role in Hairspray the movie, Gene Kelly and of course Xanadu.

Whitney Spaner: Your tap solo in the show is amazing. How long have you been tapping for?

Curtis Holbrook: I actually started tapping when I was two years old. My mom has a dance studio in San Antonio, TX. She put me inside when I was two and didn’t stop until I moved here and then I stopped tapping because there’s not really that much going on [with tap]. With most of the work I was doing, there was literally no tap involved. But when I auditioned for Xanadu I had to tap and it’s just one of those things that comes back to you. I love doing this dance stylistically. This style isn’t going on anymore, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire that whole thing that’s just really light on your feet -- floating across the floor. And especially in a show where I’m playing a Cyclops and a muse and a punk rocker and then I come out and get to do a Gene Kelly tap dance -- it’s great.

WS: It must have been great as a dancer to be in Fosse. Were you in it when it opened?

CH: No I wasn’t here yet, but my Mom took me to see it on Thanksgiving one year and my mom said, "that would be so cool if you could be in that show!" And the next Thanksgiving night she was seeing me in Fosse!

WS: When did you move to New York?

CH: I moved to New York when I was 17. I actually moved to LA for a summer just to study acting and dancing and I auditioned for the Footloose national tour. It was my first audition and I ended up getting it and I went on tour with that for seven months and then a spot opened up in the Broadway company and they brought me here. So I actually never planned on coming to New York, I always wanted to be in LA. It’s kind of embarrassing now but I always kind of wanted to be like a Britney Spears dancer -- but it definitely worked out and brought me to the right place.

WS: You’re also in the Hairspray, movie which opens this month, right?

CH: Yes, and working on a film was a totally different experience. In theater you work on the material so much and in a film you get your copy for the day and go with your first instinct, then you leave it and that’s it, you move on to something else. As an actor it’s really fun because you get to stay fresh and in it. With theater you can do that -- but only so much. You have to find all these little things that you can play with because you have to stay true to the piece, which is also great because that’s a challenge as well, which has been something that’s really great with this show because these characters are so outrageous, especially with our muse characters -- we really can go any way we want with them and it would work.

WS: How did you get into theater in the first place?

CH: Well growing up I always did community theater. My first show was Oliver when I was like six, so I grew up in community theater and then I concentrated on dancing for awhile. When I went to LA I was mainly dancing and could sing a little bit so I got by in the singing audition for Footloose. But then when I got here, it just standing next to people in shows and having to sing with them that really got my voice to grow. And I got to do so much so early -- my goal had been to do a Broadway show someday but then I reached that goal a couple times and I was like I want to keep pushing myself so I was determined to get an actual role in a Broadway show which I got to do with All Shook Up. In Xanadu, you can’t just be dancer,you have to be an actor as well even though so many of our characters don’t even have speaking lines -- there have to be those nuances.

WS: Did you know how to rollerskate before this?

CH: No not all, but it came really easily to me. I just put on skates in the audition and they taught us a combination from the number "Xanadu" actually –- which thinking back, I think that’s so insane that we had to dance on skates in an audition. We had to sign a waiver and everything.

WS: Did anyone fall?

CH: Oh yeah, a lot of people fell! I didn’t, but there’s a part in the number where I do a bunch of spins on skates and in the audition I saw the guy who was teaching do like two or three spins on skates and I was just watching like mechanically how he made it work and I just tried it. I guess from doing dance turns it came really easy to me. I did like eight spins, and I heard everyone from behind the table, the creative team, go "woah!" And I was like, "oh maybe I got this!"

WS: What do you do when you’re not working?

CH: I actually am a photographer as well. I picked it up about two years ago. I went and took a course and I started off shooting friends. A buddy of mine and I have photo parties at his house. Friends will come over and we have a theme for it and we’ll just photo shoot all night. It’s really fun, but now I’ve gotten into doing people’s headshots and stuff like that. It’s a cool thing to have on the side. I’m not really doing it for money or anything but it’s another outlet.

WS: So you just went straight from high school to doing shows?

CH: Yeah, I actually didn’t finish. I went through my junior year of high school and that’s when I got the Footloose tour so I had to get emancipated and all that. The tour flew me home for a day to get my GED and get emancipated all in the same day. It was funny because I always used to say when my mom and I would get in fight that I was going to divorce her and then when I was 17 I actually got a divorce from my mother so we laugh about that.

WS: What’s the best thing about being on Broadway?

CH: Lately I’ve been thinking about all the things that go with being in a Broadway show, like when you have the ups they’re really great, but the downs can be really, really down. There’s so much stress that goes into what we do. Where’s my next job coming from? When you get a job are people actually going to like this show? Is the show going to run? All these things can really come down on you. The best thing for me is when I get on that stage (and this may sound totally cheesy), but something just happens to me and I feel at home. Something takes over me and I feel like I don’t have to work. I have so much fun entertaining people and that feeling for me is the best. That high that I get continues on for me into the night, after the show.

WS: Can you go to bed when you get home then?

CH: I can’t, which I’ve been struggling with a lot especially during this process. There’s so much that we think about with changing the show. They’re really big on us having input about what we think needs improvement, so we think about those things at night and we kind of go back over the show that night, like what can we do to improve my show, so your mind just races, but to wind down I just kind of watch TV or play on the computer, that’s about it.

WS: What’s in your dressing room?

CH: Definitely speakers. Lately we’ve been listening to the new Maroon 5 album everyday, also Johnny Lang and Robin Thicke. There’s three of us so we all have to agree on something. But yeah, it’s essential to have music. We have to have it. The Maroon 5 gets us pumped up.

WS: What’s the most glamorous thing about being Broadway?

CH: I guess the girls who are waiting outside! There are consistently people out there who want everyone’s autograph and pictures and want to tell their story about the movie Xanadu and how it’s affected their life.

WS: Speaking of the movie, it was a bit of a flop. Do you worry about the show at all?

CH: You can’t worry about that at the end of the day, you’ve just got to do the best that you can for this show and just enjoy the show. If it runs great and if it doesn’t it’s not the end of the world. There will be something else. Who knows what it could lead to, so for me I try not to worry about that at all.

Well, After the reviews that came out this morning, I don't think Curtis will have to worry. Xanadu didn't work on film, but on stage it should be just fine.

Pictured at top is Curtis with Olivia Newton-John, the star of Xanadu the film at the Xanadu opening night party and below is a close-up of the very cute Curtis sporting a slight mohawk!

Photographs courtesy of www.broadwayworld.com.