"In a way, it's someone else's story; I don't see myself as taking part at all. Yesterday a girl that I was fond of finally could see the writing on the wall." ~chess

Because I wrote about Sweeney Todd a few days ago, I now feel the need to pay homage to my favorite musical, Chess. A musical about Chess, you say? Why, how boring. Wrong. It is fantastic. It's about so much more than Chess. It's about love, nationalism, the Cold War....I could go on and on about how much I love it. It is my favorite musical and the one that can most easily make me cry; it is also one of the most undervalued musicals ever created. I collect recordings of Chess, and I have quite a few considering its relative obscurity. Unfortunately it only lasted on Broadway for a couple of months (in 1988) and was a commercial failure. I keep hoping for a revival, though. It did well in London. Someone needs to revitalize the book. There are too many different versions of it and all of them are flawed. Tonight I watched my video of the Actor's Fund Benefit Performance from a few years ago and was, as usual, blown away by Julia Murney (playing Florence). That woman is fabulous. So someone needs to update the book, revive it on Broadway, and cast Julia Murney in it. That would make me so incredibly happy.