Fanciful stage production abandoned by university after initially warm welcome (9)
I believe the answer is:
whimsical
'fanciful' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'stage production abandoned by university after initially warm welcome' is the wordplay.
'stage production' becomes 'musical' (stage musical).
'abandoned by' indicates named letters should be taken away.
'university' becomes 'u' (abbreviation for university).
'after' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'initially warm welcome' becomes 'whi' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'musical' with 'u' taken out is 'msical'.
'msical' after 'whi' is 'WHIMSICAL'.
(Other definitions for whimsical that I've seen before include "Delicately playful" , "Appealingly fanciful" , "Playfully quaint" , "Quaintly fantastic" , "odd" .)