Acito has said that he wanted to borrow the magical aura from "Xanadu" because Zanna is a teenager with a few magic powers of his own. He's a whimsical, wand-wielding matchmaker at Heartsville High, a high school very much like any other musical-comedy high school - except that, in Heartsville as in the rest of Acito's imaginary world, it's normal to be gay and weird to be straight.
That topsy-turvy premise sets up the obvious plotline: What happens when boy meets girl and likes her? It also makes for plenty of offhand social commentary, mostly delivered in casual quips.
When the most popular boy in school - the chess champion, naturally - expresses surprise that his crush, the football star, is headed for an audition, the jock is equally surprised: "What kind of a high school would it be where the football captain doesn't try out for the school musical?" And then there's the conversation between two drama-loving teens, who share their admiration for "Romeo and Julio," "Antoinette and Cleopatra," and "Two Gentlemen of Verona."
Most of this fizzes along nicely, with such highlights as the big number from that school musical: "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," with its controversial theme of whether straights should be allowed in the military. David Connolly's choreography here, with hilarious glittery rifles and sequined camouflage jackets by costume designer Seth Bodie, is particularly snappy - matched only by the cowgirl antics of the school's precision mechanical-bull-riding team. (Really don't ask.)
Like the choreography, Paul Daigneault's direction generally keeps pace with Acito's zippy whimsy, though a few sequences drag on too long; the more serious numbers are less engaging than the lighter ones. The plot also builds too slowly to its obvious crisis, in which the straight lovers are ostracized by their gay peers, and Zanna's wand-waving solution is packaged in an over-the-top electro-disco swirl that is closer to "MacArthur Park" than I ever want to be again.
