CHESS: The Musical

Last year during quarantine, I spent time exploring musicals that I had not heard of or barely knew of. The one that stood out was CHESS. After listening to the original concept recording, I instantly fell in love with the show. I want to hear from other fans of this show. Do you think it is a great musical and should it be brought back to the stage?

pmensky said: "I don’t think it’s a great musical, but I do think it’s a great score when performed with the original concept recording’s orchestrations. I find the OBC recording unlistenable. I did not see the Broadway production. I know the show has been through at least one, maybe two (?) revisions since its original run. I saw a production at a small professional theatre company around 2003, and thought the show was very boring. If that was a revised version, I imagine the original was worse.

It also debuted on Broadway at the same time as Phantom, it was the same season as Into the Woods, and just a year earlier Les Miz opened and was still a hot ticket. So, along with the mediocrity of the show itself, it had some other circumstances working against it.

I know the show has been performed in concert many times, and I think that’s the best way to enjoy it. I doubt producers would want to do a revival of a show that only ran a couple months the first time around."

Apart from the fact that, in London, it ran more than "a couple of months," and thus there is some warrant for a US revival (that would be true to the original production rather than the Broadway edition), I largely agree with you. Two new beautiful songs were written for Broadway, and are usually incorporated into the concert versions. I think you are right that the original recording is best and that the show works best as a concert piece.

I love chess and would love to see it revived! My personal favorite version is the 2002 actors fund concert version with josh groan, Julia Murney, Sutton foster, Adam pascal, and Raul Esparza.