Chess 2025- Page 9

[TheatreMonkey]

Posted: 5/22/25 at 11:51pm

Sorta official now, no cast announcement yet.

 

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Michael-Mayer-Directed-CHESS-To-Open-On-Broadway-In-Fall-2025-20250522

[TheatreMonkey]

Posted: 5/22/25 at 11:52pm

(Bump)

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 12:56am

I just looked at the EPA and it says all of the principals are cast except for Svetlana.

[The8re phan]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 6:16am

getatme said: "As Kad said, Ramin is not attached. Someone else will be playing anatoly."

Groban??? He sang it beautifully in the concert version.......

 

Updated On: 5/23/25 at 06:16 AM

[GirlFromOz68]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 6:54am

The8re phan said: "getatme said: "As Kad said, Ramin is not attached. Someone else will be playing anatoly."

Groban??? He sang it beautifully in the concert version.......

please no. he can certainly sing but he was a block of wood as an actor in that.

pl

[Auggie27]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 8:17am

Is this the iteration using the book by Danny Strong? We hear different takes on how well it works. Does it fully jettison the Nelson text?  Any new Chess has to solve the book obstacles in a major way.  It's fair to say the show's ability to tell the story - including but beyond the love triangle -  and put over the stakes - has always been its fundamental challenge. The Cold War verisimilitude, captured in its original grimly austere B'way staging, is still a problem in making the show accessible and immediate. It's a period piece that requires expository presentation to guide an audience unfamiliar with the Soviet history.  In a new era - with Putin a global war monger and his inhumane hegemony over Ukraine without resolution - putting a character in traumatic turmoil over defection might take care.  Can they make a chess player's fate as critical and tragic as, say, Navalny's? Open question.

Updated On: 5/23/25 at 08:17 AM

[always bway]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 8:51am

I hear it's Lea, Aaron, and  Nick Christopher. And no Svetlana yet.... who would you want? 

 

[Erin V]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 9:31am

They probably can’t “officially” release anything until the theater they are moving to announces the closing date of whatever show is currently running. 

[ACL2006]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 9:37am

Erin V said: "They probably can’t “officially” release anything untilthe theater they are moving to announces the closing date of whatever show is currently running."

Majestic? Broadhurst? Imperial?

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 9:45am

Wasn’t there a rumor on here that it would be playing a Nederlander house? In which case it could be playing the Nederlander. Everything else feels pretty set as far as their houses go. (Or maybe that rumor was not legit.)

I don’t know how big the production will be but they’d be wise not to try to fill a 1400+ seater with CHESS.

Updated On: 5/23/25 at 09:45 AM

[Quinn Wilson]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 10:30am

always bway said: "I hear it's Lea, Aaron, andNick Christopher. And no Svetlana yet.... who would you want?

"

I could see Solea Pfeiffer for sure. 

[Bill Snibson]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 11:05am

always bway said: "I hear it's Lea, Aaron, andNick Christopher. And no Svetlana yet.... who would you want?"

I could see Jeanna de Waal being a great Svetlana and sounding amazing and if he wasn't busy with "Just in Time" I'd love Groff as Anatoly! 

 

[getatme]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 11:23am

It'll play a Shubert house but they are holding on announcing which until shows start posting closing notices.

[BroadwayNYC2]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 11:28am

It will be the Broadhurst.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 11:28am

Since I brought up the post-Nelson book and the show's apparent gnarly unfixability, here's a take on the new version, from Variety's review of the Kennedy Center Encores!-esque staging in 2018.

"Unfortunately, Strong’s new book — as is generally said of the Chess rewrites that preceded it — underscores the intractability of the musical’s convoluted tale, an implausible love triangle involving the U.S. and Russian chess grandmasters, and the women they love, during the cold war politics of the 1970s and ’80s. It remains comically contrived, especially as act two focuses on the menacing pair of CIA and KGB agents that repeatedly threaten the players if the next match isn’t thrown. Meanwhile, the personal sagas head for a predictably maudlin ending ... Like the two grandmasters on stage, lyricist Rice and company might have more chin stroking to do before making their next move with the troubled musical. If indeed the new script is the determining factor, they could be at stalemate."

Updated On: 5/23/25 at 11:28 AM

[quizking101]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 11:30am

IBill Snibson said: "always bway said: "I hear it's Lea, Aaron, andNick Christopher. And no Svetlana yet.... who would you want?"

I could see Jeanna de Waal being a great Svetlana and sounding amazing and if he wasn't busy with "Just in Time" I'd love Groff as Anatoly!

"
Christopher and de Waal had crackling chemistry in Sweeney so I would LOVE to see that 

 

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 11:50am

Lea, Aaron, and Nicholas, for sure.

I’d love to see Solea reprise her Svetlana, and I would especially love to hear her and Lea blending on “I Know Him So Well”.

Updated On: 5/23/25 at 11:50 AM

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 12:14pm

Lea, Aaron, Nicholas and hopefully Solea? That cast is insane and I can't wait for this production. 

[Kad]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 12:27pm

I had heard an announcement was planned for around this time of May, though obviously things are in flux. But key art and various marketing assets are ready to go.

There's nothing necessarily stopping them from making a teaser announcement with a theatre tba later, particularly since the audition notice confirmed the production.

[Erin V]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 1:10pm

Tveit’s One Night In Bangkok is going to be fire. 

[joevitus]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 1:43pm

Auggie27 said: "Since I brought up the post-Nelson book and the show's apparent gnarly unfixability, here's a take on the new version, from Variety's review of the Kennedy Center Encores!-esque staging in 2018.

"Unfortunately, Strong’s new book — as is generally said of the Chess rewrites that preceded it — underscores the intractability of the musical’s convoluted tale, an implausible love triangle involving the U.S. and Russian chess grandmasters, and the women they love, during the cold war politics of the 1970s and ’80s. It remains comically contrived, especially as act two focuses on the menacing pair of CIA and KGB agents that repeatedly threaten the players if the next match isn’t thrown. Meanwhile, the personal sagas head for a predictably maudlin ending ... Like the two grandmasters on stage, lyricist Rice and company might have more chin stroking to do before making their next move with the troubled musical. If indeed the new script is the determining factor, they could be at stalemate.""

I wonder if any audience member actually cares, though. You either love this score or you don't. And I think people really don't much mind about the complexity or lack of complexity. I don't think that's what causes this show to regularly lose money (am I wrong? I thought the original London production was a hit).

I think a show about the Cold War is always going to have trouble attracting audiences post-Cold War/post-USSR. I also think beyond the big hit "One Night in Bangkok," the score has never broken through to the general public. And I think most of the dramatic situations are hypotheticals--maybe someone throws a game, maybe someone loses--which just aren't dramatically very interesting. About the only thing that actually happens in the show, action-wise, is Florence leaving Freddy for Anatoly, Anatoly defecting and Anatoly winning the game. But none of that really leads to anything. One knows there will be another game, and another round of pressue to influence the outcome. We've witnessed a skirmish, not a war. It's dramatically inert, and by its very nature has to remain so (unless the CIA and KGB agents in the show start kidnapping/killing people for not complying with their plans). To me, those are the real issues the show faces.

And in spite of those issues, I still love the show. As I think most musical theater fans do. 

Updated On: 5/23/25 at 01:43 PM

[Auggie27]

Posted: 5/23/25 at 2:06pm

I basically agree with everything you wrote, joevitus, but raise these issues because the book's inability to connect has been the obstacle from day one. Well, at least in the US. The original production, conceived by Michael Bennett, taken over by Trevor Nunn, was probably the most ambitious, jettisoning verisimilitude for a stylized portrayal atop a movable board. it always struck me as the way to go. Since, the adaptations have gone 180 in the opposite direction, trying to create a believable dialog-driven narrative that will set off the songs. It hasn't succeeded - I saw the original B'way production twice in its short life - and it has yet to become a financial hit. I would love to see stylization save the day and free the material from a plodding commitment to literalness. I fear - and the Variety review fuels my concern - that Strong, an awarded screenwriter/cable drama scribe, will continue to hone the granular reality. I hope for the sake of the thrilling score that it works; yet it hasn't yet.

Updated On: 5/23/25 at 02:06 PM