Seth Rudetsky’s concert of Dreamgirls was given a commercial CD release, how I wish this Chess was given the same treatment. To me it’s the definitive cast. Pascal is a red hot American, Groban a passionate Russian and Murney such a vibrant electric Florence not to mention Ms Foster who steals the second half with her devastating Someone Else’s Story

I'm hoping against hope that we get a future studio recording of chess or even a new concept recording. The 2009 RAH was very good. However, I wish we could get an album that has no applause. Evidently Chess has always been easy to stage as a concert as compared to a full Broadway production. What's even weirder and more disappointing was the fact that they called the 2018 Kennedy Center production of Chess a pre-broadway tryout. It never went to Broadway.

@@fountainchain126 I agree, this cast is on fire! I basically consider this my definitive performance

@@DerekMckean the 2009 recording was just ok for me. I'm really not crazy about Idina as a belter, Adam Pascal wasn't as strong as he was here, and the energy across the board didn't reach these same heights. The 1994 concert with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra almost got it perfect, but their Freddie can't hit the notes! I don't know why we can't get one great definitive recording of this show lol! This truly could have been it

Definitely caught on to #2 more than once. And Groban was more seasoned by the time the Idina version came around. That said, I LOVE that they were permitted to hold the music. The body of words and music to memorize in this show is insane (I know, I'm doing it right now)

Whoa!! Avenue Q!

Yes, it was his own king. Traditionally, you concede defeat in chess by toppling your own king. I also loved the moves before, with the black queen keeping the white king in check.

The choreography was equal parts amusing, beautiful and powerful.

I have such happy memories of this musical

Fun fact: I remember reading back in the day that the non-dance aspect of the choreography- i.e. the “chess moves” themselves - were taken from an actual championship match

you should’ve seen chess at the muny. i was in it and i was floored by the whole cast and the directing and absolutely everything

EXACTLY!!! :(

Truly is such a gem. Needs to happen!

i need the muny version on broadway asap

What is the the difference between the Broadway version and West End Version.

​@baldbeardedbloke6887 A whole lot. This musical which pretty much reflects the west end version, while the original Broadway version with Judy Kuhn had a much thicker and different book. The west end version was mostly a sung-thru musicals with more characterizations/symbols of people. The writer of the Broadway book, Trevor Nunn, added more scenes of dialogue and scenes run more like a play. Because of Nunn's book, almost 1/2 of the songs from the west end were cut -- especially big songs that acted like huge plot devices such as The Deal, The Interview, Merano (since the chess championship wasn't held in Merano), Florence & Molokov (a huge plot device about Anatoly and Freddie working out their differences while to stop "playing politics snd start playing chess."), Commie Newspapers (which introduces tge main characters), and talking Chess, as well as One More Opponent. All these songs were irrelevant to the plot of the original Broadway version. In addition, many songs were shortened to make the musical reasonable length. On a positive note, several songs were added to the Broadway, both a ballad, Someone Else's Story which later was written into west end versions, as well as some plot story songs like Let's Work Together where Molokov works with the Walter to get Florence's father out. However, it had more of a tetris kind of sound to it snd sounded nothing like The Deal. However, the song Winning ("No Contest" as on album) was similar to the two choruses of Florence Quits. Although Florence Quits was in the Broadway version, it was not on the CD and was labeled "So You Got What You Want"/"A Taste of Pity." Once again, since Trevor Nunn's book had lots of dialogue, the song order order was rearranged, almost to the point tgat it was a different musical. Yes, it had the main pop songs of the London version, but because of the book, it was extremely different.. That's another thing-- Chess is a work in progress. There's about 4+ versions of Chess. The sweedish version is also very different. It's not just merely a translation, but an entirely different song order from London and story re-writes/exclusions. And then there was the aussie version that had elements of both Broadway and London. Notice hiw I said 4+. With each new major professional version, Tim Rice has done some book tweaks. Please notice Trevor Nunn only wrote and the Broadway version, and more productions have opted out of using the Broadway version since its cold War background is irrelevant. Most newer versions have opted in to produce something similar to the west end version. Tim Rice has done some major tweaks most recently in a concert version with Raul Esperanza, where its similar to the West End, but changed some positions of songs and added a bit of more narration. Hence, there's obviously more than 4 versions of Chess since Sir Tim Rice has done done edits throughout the years. Trevor Nunn is no longer involved in Chess productions was only in charge of the Broadway book. Personally if Trevor Nunn had no involvement with the original Broadway version and it was merely a direct transfer of the original west end version, it epukd have done better on Broadway. They just hired Nunn since they wanted to make it appeal to American audiences. It did the opposite. However, there are still fans of the original Broadway version.

Whoa!!! Just now watching "Younger" and learning her body of other work

I saw him in a video as Freddy at the Kennedy Center and thought he was amazing! Much prefer him to the Arbiter though!

Same! One of the best experiences of my life! Hard to believe it was 20 years ago!

Glad it did:)

Have you not seen the one from 2008? That ones really great too

Was there something that they should have added or taken away to make the new plot work? Was it just Pity The Child because that never worked in the original American Production either.

@@HarveyBacktheBeatles I would say it’s not just Pity the Child. Having two tournaments with Freddie in both of them doesn’t make a lot of sense (to me). A lot of the dialogue in this version was awkward, pieced together bits from the West End and Broadway versions. Some songs were missing, but they tried to add in those plot points through dialogue. Freddie’s character arc doesn’t make a lot of sense here. Without the Press Conference, we aren’t introduced to his character’s insecurities. Also, Pity the Child should come at Freddie’s lowest moment, when he’s ready to reevaluate his attitude because he finally realizes where it comes from. Here, he gets slightly ignored by some reporters and is upset that Florence still won’t come back to him after he insulted her on air. A few songs later, he’s back to his cocky attitude, confident that he can beat Anatoly. After he wins, he just disappears from the story. There’s no impact. Anatoly’s loss doesn’t even have the same weight here, because it seems like he was undecided up until the last minute, and so Freddie beat him due to actual skill. It wasn’t a sacrifice OR a triumph. In short, this version takes away a lot of Freddie’s character depth, and a lot of the symbolic meaning of the ending.

​@@CHESShireCat I have to agree with everything you're saying. I'm not a fan of Anatoly losing no matter what, and having it done this way is really annoying. It's easy to get Anatoly somewhat right, Freddie is absolutely the difficulty in Chess. (this is obviously not to take away from Adam Pascal, I love his performance!) I do think that two acts versus Freddie can work; the 1990 Syndey plot is one of my absolute favorites; but the rematch idea is not the way to do it. I find it strange that they tried to include the Interview scene at all-it just doesn't work without Freddie. And obviously, Freddie shouldn't ever win the game. His maturing is the main feature of his character arc, and it doesn't happen if he wins. I honestly don't hate most of the dialogue they added. The Press Conference scene is important, and it would declutter the dialogue they have before The Russian and Molokov. I do appreciate the nod to the concept album with Florence saying "your personal life's the lead on the news," in the lead-in to You And I. And in regards to that song, while I do like the part with Svetlana, I never felt that it really made any sense to suddenly switch to a conversation we have no context for. I dislike Freddie Goes Metal as a song generally. Honestly, the most annoying part of this for me is that it seems so close to the British script that it could very easily just have been the same thing. They've removed so many songs already and songs like The Soviet Machine wouldn't have been major losses, the only major sacrifice being the Press Conference. Remove Freddie Goes Metal and that would make room for Talking Chess to take its place. They probably wouldn't even have needed a new actor for Viigand, since the chorus is sizable and the role doesn't speak. They could even have gone the route of the original London production and not have had an actor for Viigand in Endgame. I wonder if this was done while the licensing still meant that North American productions had to be done with some derivative of the Broadway script, and that's why they included so many elements of it.

@@kanjid6780 I wonder how far someone could’ve pushed the Broadway plot closer to the British version without violating the licensing agreement. I’d say the biggest difference between the two is that Freddie wins. Maybe that’s the main requirement, since the change was made in the first place because Americans apparently couldn’t handle a Russian winning.

@@CHESShireCat Interesting question. I wonder if it could even be done without that, as I could see rewriting Act 2 to allow Anatoly to win while maintaining that essence. Insert The Deal in, put Pity after it, and add a scene with Freddie after Endgame, and the rest of the show works well enough to be passable.

Well this WAS when he was first starting out, he was just 22 (my age now) at the time this was done.

Epic in DC?? His voice was awful, just like Svetlana; I almost walked out of the show. Such a disappointment!

@@avb5868 you must have caught him after the strep throat. I saw him on the Wednesday show, he was awesome

Nope not at all...no

I'm working on a video about the musical nd I grew up with the '08 version but decided to watch this one as well for research purposes. I have to say, vocally and acting-wise it's far superior to the '08 version. like, I'm sorry but Josh is so wooden in '08, idk why. Maybe he was having a bad day? But I will say, the structure of songs in '08 is better.

No, but you’ll probably get a few who disagree with you, myself included. Each to his or her own.

Check out the 2008 version Checkers from London with some of the same cast members kzfaq.info/sun/PL71B335941EB1F97C&si=lPb7LVf8W1LlUr4-

1:49:27 Most Finale Emotional Song

yesss!

From what I know you could probably talking about the West End version vs Broadway version. The original (chess board falling with dark background) is the West End version but the most original one is its concept album released in 1984. It's a long story but there is no exactly same big production of Chess. Like Broadway version (man and woman running with flags) has a very different plot than concept album and West End which most of the fans don't like. Each version would have the order of songs changed, added or removed, or bits of lyrics changed. This version has its plot a mix between West End and Broadway version. You can also watch the 2006 version which also had Josh Groban as Anatoly and Adam Pascal as Freddie. That version is also a mix between West End and Broadway version but it's different compare to this one. This one is only like quickly put together show so this one doesn't have original recording. Anyway, you can read about this more on wikipedia.

the music has been reworked endlessly. Songs are in different order, sung by different characters, lyrics changed

Yes, Norm Lewis is playing Malokov

tis

It was a one night concert

It was a one time thing with very limited rehearsal. In concerts like these it’s pretty typical to have scripts onstage

lol it bothered me so much too when I first saw this! I was like is it in case they forget their lines?? But I remember some ppl said that it had to do with the fact that it was televised and something about copyright/licensing jargon...

@@SVUfannycThe rehearsal period for a project like this is anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks. The convention for doing musicals in concert is 'book in hand' - to point out that this isn't a full production. And yes, sometimes they don't know all of their lines because the rehearsal period is so short. But it is, of course, much easier to act without looking down into the book, so people would usually memorize them.

@@SVUfannyc It was a staged reading/concert, not a full production. It’s very common to have scripts and scores in hand for a staged reading. City Center has a permanent series that does this with a few musicals every year.

There is only really good version and thats the original. 😉

@@antonossianssonMusic sometimes the descendants are better than their ancestors. Hence legally blonde