Gentlemen:

Over a year ago, you announced a revival of Chess for North America which would consist of a slightly revised, semi-staged concert version of the London production. This would then become the definitive version, supplanting the Broadway and all other versions worldwide.

Currently, you have a show that is weirdly unique in that it’s never done the same way twice. This is a ridiculous state of affairs. Hundreds of thousands of people who have seen Chess have never seen Chess.

Now suddenly, there is to be a NEW version of Chess, set during one week in Merano, which omits the show's most famous song as well as most of the second act as we know it.

Sweden should have had a Swedish version long ago. A translation of the London production. But a new version that is then to be re-translated into English and then possibly brought to America or London? The last thing Chess needs is another version.

As I have said on this website since its inception, you should admit that you got it (mostly) right the first time. By never releasing an original cast album of that production, you shot yourselves in the collective foot. Theatregoers who didn’t see Chess at the Prince Edward think the concept album (and its muddy synopsis) is the London show. The published version came so many years later, and since it makes no reference to the original cast, theatre or dates, there is a widely-held perception that it was never staged.

In running this website, I have heard from thousands of people, and what a vast majority of them want is all the music, all of the original show. The London production has become legendary.

As for what you announced that you would do (and presumably wanted)…it’s already been done, in Auckland, New Zealand, with two of your original stars. It worked extremely well. Why not copy that version, staging and sets and let it loose in North America and the world?

Will it be a hit? As William Goldman said regarding show business, "nobody knows anything." But at least it is a pared-down, cohesive production of your original work.

No helicopters, hydraulic stages or chandeliers. Just the most beautiful music ever.

You all had an idea in 1985. The songs and characters are rooted in 1985. Revisions this late in the game risk sounding interpolated, lacking the tone of the original. That original is what Chess intrinsically is, good or bad, and is what the world should see.

Sincerely,

Sylvia Stoddard