CHESS Previews- Page 7

[GirlFromOz68]

Posted: 10/19/25 at 4:39pm

CopleyScott17 said: "Unless I slipped into a brief coma, the dream ballet was cut completely on Saturday night. I know they're in previews, but I think this revival would have benefitted greatly from an out-of-town tryout. If you are charging Broadway prices you should be further along."

Well they did 4 concerts in 2018 and a concert in 2022 and the main trio spent some time during the summer working on it with Michael and Danny before rehearsal started.  Also I was under the impression previews were for exactly this, working out how the show did in front of an audience pre opening night and clearly they need to get the show down from nearly 3 hours.

I'm not disagreeing about the pricing being high for previews, but people know they are previews so vote against the prices by not going if you don't want to pay those prices.  if people still go in previews when they are still working on the show that's on them.  I personally wouldn't go to a preview and pay thise prices.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 10/19/25 at 5:36pm

So this already legendary slash excised ballet is making me think of 1) "Tick Tock" in Company, and 2) the nude Sandahl Bergman doing "Airerotica" in All That Jazz. Am I way off?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 10/19/25 at 11:53pm

Jarethan said: "
I actually saw the London show in the 80s fourtimes in the 3or so years it was open, as I was traveling to London on business regularly. After the first viewing, I accepted the fact that the show had a decent number of boringparts and I continued to re-visit itbecause the highs, i.e., most of the score, were so high. It was very bloated, not in a good way, which is why Nunn wanted to take a new look at it. I truly do not remember whether it was sung through and, if so, whether there was recitative or actual melodies.

When I saw it is NYC in 1987 or 1988 (I think), I thought it was much worse than the London version, despite the good voices.Nunn's vision was a total bore. I had an opportunity to see it a second time for free in the 10 weeks it was open, but I felt it was so lousy that I had no interest in seeing it again. I did continueto listen to the original London cast recording on a regular basis, since it is probably to this day myfavorite cast recording ever."

Right, obviously one of the biggest "what ifs" is what would the London Chess been like if Michael Bennett were able to stay with it, and Nunn wasn't unhappy feeling stuck with his approved designs.  As I think has been mentioned here, that Original London Cast Album is actually the concept album, with different song order and selection, orchestrations and some different cast members than opened in the London production.  The London one--which was indeed fully sung--is only represented on CD via the Danish Tour cast (which does add in Someone Else's Story.)