Tim Rice | Biography & History | AllMusic google+ Artist Biography by Jason Ankeny Famed for his enormously successful collaboration with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber , lyricist Tim Rice was born November 10, 1944, in Buckinghamshire, England. After fronting the little-known pop combo the Aardvarks during the early '60s, he worked at a law firm before first teaming with Lloyd Webber in 1965 to author the musical The Likes of Us; the show never reached the stage, however, and the two went their separate ways, with Rice accepting a position with EMI Records. He reunited with Lloyd Webber in 1968 for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a pop musical inspired by the Biblical character Joseph; the original production, lasting just 20 minutes, was first mounted at London's Colet Court School, and subsequent expanded performances at Westminster's Central Hall and St. Paul's Cathedral led to a Decca cast recording issued in early 1969.

Rice and Lloyd Webber 's next collaboration, the 1970 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, rocketed the duo to international renown; first documented as a double album featuring performers including Murray Head , Deep Purple 's Ian Gillan , and Yvonne Elliman , the LP topped the American pop charts, and successful productions were soon mounted both on Broadway and in London's West End. (The latter, which premiered August 9, 1972, at the Palace Theater, later surpassed Oliver! as the longest-running musical in British theater history.) The Jesus Christ Superstar feature film followed in 1973, the same year Rice and Lloyd Webber began work on their next project, a musical based on the life of Eva Peron, the wife of Argentine president Juan Peron; highlighted by singer Julie Covington 's international chart-topper "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," the 1976 album Evita appeared nearly two years prior to the show's mid-1978 opening at the Prince Edward Theater, with the subsequent Broadway production winning seven Tony Awards.

Rice 's next major production, 1983's Blondel, was authored in tandem with composer Stephen Oliver, while for the follow-up Chess, he teamed with ex- ABBA members Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus . A musical inspired by the events of the Cold War, Chess first surfaced as a 1984 album which generated the Elaine Paige / Barbara Dickson U.K. number one "You Know Him So Well" as well as Murray Head 's U.S. chart smash "One Night in Bangkok." The stage show replaced Evita at the Prince Edward Theater in 1986 and proceeded to run for three years; its Broadway counterpart, however, was a colossal financial failure, closing after just 68 performances. In 1986, Rice and Lloyd Webber reunited for Cricket, a 25-minute comedy commissioned in honor of the Queen's 60th birthday, but otherwise Rice maintained a low profile in the years to follow before taking over for the late Howard Ashman to complete work on the 1992 animated Disney feature Aladdin. The soundtrack's "A Whole New World," written with composer Alan Menken , topped the U.S.

charts and went on to take home an Academy Award. Remaining at Disney, Rice next teamed with Elton John for 1993's The Lion King; the most successful animated picture of all time, it too earned an Oscar for Best Original Song, in this case the smash "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" The following year Rice and Menken wrote several new songs for the Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast, inspired by the 1991 Disney film blockbuster; in 1997, The Lion King was adapted for the Broadway stage as well. In the interim, Rice collaborated with composer John Farrar for Heathcliff, a musical based on the Emily Brontë novel Wuthering Heights which was first issued as a 1995 LP featuring Cliff Richard before making its London stage debut the following year. He and Menken also re-teamed for King David, which appeared on LP in 1997 but for a handful of a handful of previews remained otherwise largely unseen. Rice next reunited with Elton John for the 1998 stage musical Aida and the 2000 animated feature The Road to El Dorado.

ABBA-Tim Rice musical has checkered past, but is now set for public television ABBA-Tim Rice musical has checkered past, but is now set for public television By Michael Cidoni, Gaea News Network Tuesday, June 16, 2009 Another move for ‘Chess’ _ on public television LOS ANGELES — Tim Rice has been playing the “Chess” game for more than 25 years, and the lyricist will go another round as PBS “Great Performances” serves up “Chess in Concert.” “I think, at last, we’re getting it right,” Rice told the 5,000 audience members who packed London’s Royal Albert Hall to see pop singer Josh Groban and Broadway stars Idina Menzel (”Wicked”) and Adam Pascal (”Rent”) head up a concert production of the musical in May 2008, which was recorded for the PBS presentation on Wednesday (check local listings). At the start, Rice (”Jesus Christ Superstar,” ”Evita”) and co-composers Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson (the songwriting half of ABBA) appeared to be making all the right moves.

“Chess” was inspired by the 1972 chess match between American Bobby Fischer and Russian Boris Spassky. Rice said he didn’t have any great fascination with the game itself but was intrigued that “each side had the wrong guy. “The Americans, who from our point of view in the West, who were meant to be the good guys, had a real bum in Fisher,” he said. “And the Russians, who were meant to be the bad guys, from the West’s point of view, had a really nice guy in Spassky.” Rice imagined the two players as fictional characters in a love triangle that served as an allegory for East-West tensions. He wrote the book and then teamed with Ulvaeus and Andersson, who were seeking a diversion from ABBA (to which they ultimately never returned). A “Chess” concept recording was released in 1984, delivering the American pop-chart smash “One Night in Bangkok,” as well as a British chart topper, the duet “I Know Him So Well.” Menzel recalled that, as a young theater fan, hearing “Bangkok” on the radio was heartening. “It’s so rare that you ever have a single from a musical,” she said.

A West End production was unveiled in 1986 to mixed reviews, but propelled in part by ABBA-mania and the hit singles, ran for three years. A much-altered version of the show, complete with a hefty new book, opened on Broadway two years later, was widely panned and closed in just eight weeks. “I was very depressed by it,” Rice said. “But there was something about the music of ‘Chess’ that made me think, sometime later, ‘I’ve got to pick myself up,’ as the song says, ‘and start all over again.’” “Chess” took on its own life, with dozens of productions around the globe — many cobbling together elements of the West End and Broadway versions and often adding their own new spins. Among them was a 2003 Actors Fund of America benefit concert for which Groban was approached to star. “I thought to myself, ‘Well, if I haven’t heard it at this point, it probably isn’t that good,’” Groban said.

“And when I put it in the CD player, I remember specifically, I was sitting in traffic and I remember sitting there with my mouth wide open, chilled — thinking to myself, ‘How have I not heard this brilliant music?’” The Actors Fund production got Rice to thinking that an official version of “Chess” should be declared and documented, and “Chess in Concert” was born. But it’s not likely the endgame for the musical. “I hope not,” the 64-year-old Rice said. “I think, and I hope, that it will come back to Broadway and/or the West End as a show, but I very much want it to be based on the score that this concert is. “But it takes time,” he said, with a smile. “These things take time.” On the Net: Chess The Musical UK Tour - YouTube Chess The Musical UK Tour Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Uploaded on Sep 29, 2010 Strictly Come Dancing's Craig Revel Horwood directs a feisty and talented company of actors and musicians in an extraordinary new staging of Chess The Musical. Written by Tim Rice and ABBA's Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, Chess has one of the greatest musical theatre scores of all time, including One Night in Bangkok; Pity The Child; Anthem; You And I and, of course, I Know Him So Well, which became a number one hit for Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson. The story sees two of the world's greatest chess masters battle it out at the world chess championships, but their greatest contest is for the love of one woman who is the manager of one but has fallen for the other. For further information visit Filmed and Edited by Matthew Titterton, AdVision TV Ltd Category Tim Rice | The Stars | Broadway: The American Musical | PBS Composers, Lyricists & Writers Tim Rice Tall and silver-haired, Rice began his lyric writing career in partnership with fellow music student Andrew Lloyd Webber in the mid-1960s.

Their first produced musicals were drawn from Biblical themes: “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat” (1967) and “Jesus Christ Superstar” (1969). Rice and Lloyd Webber pioneered the use of concept albums in raising both money for and public awareness of their music. The apotheosis of their collaboration was “Evita” (1979), a pop opera about Argentina’s first lady, Eva Peron that was a success both in London and in New York and earned Rice two Tony Awards. After nearly a decade and a half, it was finally filmed in 1996 with Madonna in the lead. Following “Evita,” Rice and Lloyd Webber went their separate ways creatively (except for the 1986 operetta “Cricket” commissioned for presentation before Queen Elizabeth II). Rice collaborated with composer Stephen Oliver on the medieval story “Blondel” (1983) and later wrote “Chess” (1985) with pop artists Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Anderson (of ABBA).

The latter went through several incarnations, beginning as a concept album and later staged in London by Michael Bennett and Trevor Nunn and in New York by Nunn. While the pop score produced the hit singles “One Night in Bangkok” and “I Know Him So Well” in England, “Chess” failed to capture the American public’s attention, partly because its use of a chess match as a metaphor for the Cold War seemed dated by its 1988 American premiere. Tim Rice "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" "The Lion King" Robin Wagner Andrew Lloyd Webber Rice had contributed lyrics to several songs used in features including “Hearts Not Diamonds” (music by Marvin Hamlisch) in THE FAN (1981) and “All Time High” (music by John Barry) in OCTOPUSSY (1983). In 1992, he was selected to help augment the score for Disney’s animated feature ALADDIN after lyricist Howard Ashman had succumbed to AIDS.

Collaborating with composer Alan Menken, Rice provided the words for the Oscar-winning “A Whole New World.” He and Menken further collaborated on the stage version of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” (1993). Rice then teamed with Elton John for the songs for Disney’s THE LION KING (1994), for which he received his second Oscar for “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” Rice picked up a third Oscar for the ballad “You Must Love Me” written for Madonna to sing in EVITA (1996). The song also marked the first collaboration between Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber in over a decade. Source: Excerpted from Baseline. BaselineStudioSystems — A Hollywood Media Corp. Company. Photo credits: Photofest Tim Rice - Biography - IMDb Biography Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trivia (21) | Personal Quotes (7) Overview (3) 6' 4" (1.93 m) Mini Bio (1) A prolific lyricist and librettist, Tim Rice was born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, in the fall of 1944.

Rice pursued his university education at Lancing College and, briefly, at l'Universite de Paris - Sorbonne. He was considering a legal career around the time that he met Andrew Lloyd Webber in 1965. Three years later, the two young men composed a 20-minute pop oratorio that would eventually become "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". The piece was premiered on 1st March 1968 at the Colet Court School in the City of London. During the following months, Rice and Webber lengthened the oratorio to 30 minutes, and a record album of "Joseph" (with Rice singing the role of "Pharaoh") was made at the end of 1968. Remaining in partnership with Webber, his next project was "Jesus Christ Superstar". Introduced to the public as a concept album in 1970, the opera propelled Rice and Webber to international stardom. Staged versions appeared the following year, and their popularity led to the film Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). Following "Superstar", Rice and Webber returned to their previous project and expanded it into (more or less) its finalised form.

The concept album for "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" was released in 1974. Inexplicably eclipsed by his collaborator, Rice may never have received the acclaim that he deserved for his contributions to the partnership. The death-throws of the Rice-Webber collaboration produced a third opera, called "Evita". Its concept album was released in 1976. Rice continued on with a piece called "Blondel", which appeared in 1983. Set to music by Stephen Oliver , "Blondel" was arguably the most comic and witty of Rice's major works. The opera "Chess" followed, with its concept album arriving in 1984. Former ABBA songwriters Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson provided the music for "Chess", and the concept album was an international hit. "Chess" was staged in London in 1986 with great success, but the 1988 Broadway production was radically revised without Rice's knowledge or permission, and it was quickly shut down. In 1991, he was hired to finish the lyrics for the Walt Disney film Aladdin (1992).

Disney subsequently teamed him with Elton John for The Lion King (1994). Rice also composed additional lyrics for the stage version of Disney's film Beauty and the Beast (1991), which opened on Broadway in 1994. A stage version of The Lion King (1994) opened on Broadway in 1997, as he was working with Elton John on two new projects - "Aida", which opened on Broadway in 2000, and the Dreamworks film, The Road to El Dorado (2000). The 1991 to 2000 period also saw a flurry of activity for Tim Rice's earlier works. Major revival productions of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" were staged in many parts of the world. Additionally, there was the film, Evita (1996), as well as the video-films Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (1991), and Great Performances: Jesus Christ Superstar (2000).

Apart from theatre and film, Rice has written recurring columns for UK newspapers, as well as having shown up regularly on BBC Radio and Television. In 1973, he founded a cricket side - The Heartaches - for which he serves as a manager as well as a player. He also makes regular contributions to various cricket magazines. He continues to have projects in development for the theatre and for film. Most anxiously awaited - especially by audiences in Canada and the United States - is, perhaps, a revival of the authentic 1986 London version of "Chess". - IMDb Mini Biography By: Liberty Salinger <liberty_salinger@hotmail.com> Spouse (1) ( 19 August 1974 - present) (2 children) Trivia (21) Was knighted in 1994 Has a brother, Jonathan, often known as Jo Rice , who has written some of the books of the TV series "Keeping Up Appearances" (1990) as well as co-founding The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles with Tim, Paul Gambaccini and Mike Read in 1977. Is a supporter of Sunderland Football Club of the English Premiership Division.

Sang lead vocals with a pop group named The Aardvarks (1961-1963). His first published song, "That's My Story", appeared in 1965, which was the same year he met Andrew Lloyd Webber . Wrote songs with Andrew Lloyd Webber that were not intended for musicals including a song "It's Easy For You" recorded by Elvis Presley in 1976. Is the chairman of The Foundation For Sports and the Arts. He was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 2000 (1999 season) for Best New Musical for The Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre. He was nominated for a 2004 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Outstanding Musical Production of 2003 for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Originally wrote the lyrics for the song "Memory" for the Andrew Lloyd Webber - Trevor Nunn stage musical Cats. However, the show's director Trevor Nunn and Lloyd Webber had problems with his lyrics, which eventually led to Lloyd Webber commissioning Nunn to write his own lyrics for the tune.

This drove a final nail into the already-splintered relationship between Tim Rice and Lloyd Webber, whose feud dates back to the days of their work on the original Evita concept album. Has won three Tony Awards: two in 1980, as Best Score, his lyrics with Andrew Lloyd Webber 's music, and as Best Book (Musical) for "Evita;" and in 2000, as Best Original Musical Score, his lyrics with Elton John 's music for "Aida." He was also Tony-nominated five other times: in 1972, as Best Score, him as lyricist and Webber as composer, for "Jesus Christ Superstar;" in 1982, as Best Score, his lyrics with Webber's music, and as Best Book (Musical) for "Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamboat;" in 1994, as Original Music Score, lyrics by him and Howard Ashman with Alan Menken 's music for "Beauty and the Beast;" and in 1998, as Best Original Music Score, shared with several others, for "The Lion King." Supporter and promoter of the British Conservative Party.

Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1999. His favorite songs are "Singing The Blues" by Tommy Steele , "Different Drum" by Linda Ronstadt & The Stone Poneys, "Summertime Blues" by Eddie Cochran , "Pity The Child" by Murray Head , "Runaway" by Del Shannon , "Joanne" by Michael Nesmith , "His Latest Flame" by Elvis Presley , "Hugging My Grudge" by The Boy Least Likely To, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper and "Travelling Light" by Cliff Richard & The Shadows . (Source: BBC Radio 2 "Tracks of My Years"). Father of author Eva Rice (born 1976) with Jane McIntosh . Selections from Chess : Tim Rice : 9780881889185 Selections from Chess By (author) Tim Rice , By (author) Benny Andersson , By (author) Bjorn Ulvaeus Share US$13.51 US$16.99 You save US$3.48 Free delivery worldwide Add to basket Add to wishlist Description (Vocal Selections).

15 selections from the Broadway musical featuring songs written by Tim Rice and the two "B"s from Scandinavian supergroup ABBA: Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus. Includes: Anthem * Chess * Heaven Help My Heart * Merano * One Night in Bangkok * Someone Else's Story * more. show more Product details 223.5 x 299.7 x 7.6mm | 340.2g Publication date CHESS – icethesite – Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus news site CHESS CHESS The Musical – a chequered history indeed CHESS is a musical with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, formerly of ABBA. The story involves a romantic triangle between two top players, an American and a Russian, in a world chess championship, and a woman who manages one and falls in love with the other; all in the context of a Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, during which both countries wanted to win international chess tournaments for propaganda purposes.

Although the protagonists were not intended to represent any specific individuals, the character of the American was loosely based on chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer, while elements of the story may have been inspired by the chess careers of Russian grandmasters Viktor Korchnoi and Anatoly Karpov. Following the pattern of Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, a highly successful concept album of CHESS was released in 1984. The first theatrical production of CHESS opened in London’s West End in 1986 and played for three years. A much-altered US version premièred on Broadway in 1988, but survived only for two months. CHESS is frequently revised for new productions, many of which try to merge elements from both the London and Broadway versions; however, no major revival production of the musical has yet been attempted either on West End or Broadway. CHESS came seventh in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the United Kingdom’s “Number One Essential Musicals.” History Development Tim Rice had long wanted to create a musical about the Cold War; in the 1970s he had discussed writing a musical about the Cuban Missile Crisis with his usual collaborator, Andrew Lloyd Webber.

In 1979, Rice had the idea to instead tell the story through the prism of the American-Soviet CHESS rivalry; he had previously been fascinated by the political machinations of the 1972 “Match of the Century” between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. Webber was busy at the time with the musical Cats, so American producer Richard Vos suggested working with Andersson and Ulvaeus instead, knowing they were looking for projects outside of ABBA. Rice, who was a fan of ABBA, agreed; he wrote later that he felt no reservations because “there is a sense of theatre in the ABBA style”. Rice met with the two for the first time in December 1981 in Stockholm to discuss the concept (Vos was also in attendance), and they quickly signed on to the project. (ABBA stopped performing a year later, about which Rice has joked, “maybe that’s my fault”.) All through 1983 Rice, Andersson and Ulvaeus worked on the music and lyrics.

Rice would describe the mood of particular songs he wanted, then Andersson and Ulvaeus would write and record the music and send the tapes to Rice, and Rice would then write lyrics to fit the music. Some of the songs on the album contained elements of music Andersson and Ulvaeus previously had written for ABBA: the chorus of “I Know Him So Well”, for instance, was based on the chorus of “I Am An A”, a song from ABBA’s 1977 tour; while the chorus of “Anthem” used the chords of the guitar solo of “Our Last Summer”. Ulvaeus would also provide dummy lyrics to emphasize the rhythmic patterns of the music, and some of them ended up in the final version since Rice found them “embarrassingly good” (“One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble” is the most well-known example). One song, which became “Heaven Help My Heart”, was recorded with an entire set of lyrics, sung by ABBA’s Agnetha Fältskog, with the title “Every Good Man”; though none of the original lyrics from this song were used.

Album CHESS Concept Album It was decided to release the music as an album before any stage show was under way, a strategy that had proven successful with Rice’s two previous musicals, Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. Recording work on the album musical of CHESS began in November 1983. The main recording was done at Polar Studios in Stockholm, with orchestral and choir parts recorded in London by the London Symphony Orchestra. Andersson himself played the keyboards. The protagonists, simply called the “American” and the “Russian” for the album, were sung by Murray Head and Tommy Körberg, respectively; the part of Florence, initially the American’s second and subsequently the Russian’s mistress, was sung by Elaine Paige while the part of Svetlana, the Russian’s wife, was sung by Barbara Dickson. The album was sound-engineered and mixed by Michael B. Tretow, who worked with ABBA on all of their recordings. The resulting album, a double LP, was released worldwide in the fall of 1984. The album’s liner notes included a basic synopsis of the story.

The music on the album was described by The New York Times in the contemporary review as “a sumptuously recorded…grandiose pastiche that touches half a dozen bases, from Gilbert and Sullivan to late Rodgers and Hammerstein, from Italian opera to trendy synthesizer-based pop, all of it lavishly arranged for the London Symphony Orchestra with splashy electronic embellishments”. A single from the album, “One Night in Bangkok”, performed by Murray Head (in verses) and Anders Glenmark (in chorus) became a worldwide smash, also reaching No.3 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The duet “I Know Him So Well” by Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson held the Number One spot on the UK singles charts for 4 weeks and won the Ivor Novello Award as the Best Selling Single (‘A’ Side). It was later covered by Whitney Houston and her mother Cissy on Whitney’s second album Whitney, and by Barbra Streisand on her 1992 “Highlights from Just for the Record”.

On 27 October 1984, the concert version of the CHESS album was premiered by the original cast in London’s Barbican Centre and then performed in Hamburg, Amsterdam and Paris with a final presentation on 1 November in Berwaldhallen in Stockholm. In 1985, music videos were filmed for the songs “One Night in Bangkok”, “Nobody’s Side”, “The Arbiter”, “I Know Him So Well” and “Pity the Child”, featuring the performers from the album, and directed by David G. Hillier. These were released together in a VHS video entitled CHESS Moves. West End CHESS premièred in the Prince Edward Theatre in London on 14 May 1986 and closed on 8 April 1989. It was originally set to be directed by Michael Bennett, but he withdrew for health reasons. He only did so, however, after casting the show and commissioning the expansive set and costume designs. The show was rescued by director Trevor Nunn, who shepherded the show on to its scheduled opening, though with considerable technical difficulty.

The three principal singers from the concept album, Elaine Paige, Tommy Körberg and Murray Head reprised their roles on stage. Barbara Dickson declined to appear, and Siobhán McCarthy played the part of Svetlana. According to set designer Robin Wagner, interviewed in Lynn Pecktal’s book Set Design, the original Bennett version was to be a “multimedia” show, with an elaborate tilting floor, banks of television monitors, and other technological touches. Nunn, realizing he could never bring Bennett’s vision to fruition, instead applied his realistic style to the show, although the basics of the mammoth set design were still present in Nunn’s show. This included the three videowalls, the main of which featured commentary from CHESS master William Hartston, along with appearances from BBC newsreaders. The London version was a massive physical production, with estimated costs up to $12 million. It expanded the storyline of the concept album, adding considerable new recitative, and attracted several West End stars, such as Anthony Head, Grania Renihan, Ria Jones, David Burt, and Peter Karrie, during its three year run.

The production won the 1986 Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Best Musical, and received three 1986 Laurence Olivier Award nominations: Best Musical, Outstanding Performance by an Actor (Tommy Körberg) and Outstanding Performance by an Actress (Elaine Paige). Notably, in two of these categories (Best Musical and Outstanding Performance by an Actor) CHESS lost to The Phantom of the Opera, by Rice’s former collaborator Andrew Lloyd Webber. Critical reception The premiere of the musical provoked an overall mixed to favourable verdict from the critics and, according to Variety Magazine, “one of the bigger West End mob-scenes in recent memory”. Most of the naysaying notices had comments ranging from “far too long” and “shallow, improbable story masquerading as a serious musical” (The Sunday Times) to The Guardian’s conclusion, “A musical is only as good as its book, and here one is confronted by an inchoate mess.” Other newspapers posted raving reviews.

The Daily Telegraph wrote that the show “gift-wrapped and gorgeous…compels admiration”, The Times noted that “it turns out to be a fine piece of work that shows the dinosaur mega-musical evolving into intelligent form of life” and Today called it “gripping, eye-catching.. nearly a major triumph”. Michael Ratcliffe wrote in Observer that “operetta plot which would have delighted mature Lehar is dramatised in a buoyant, eclectic and stirring theatre-score” and called Körberg “the indisputable star of the show”. Sheridan Morley in International Herald Tribune complimented show’s “remarkably coherent dramatic shape … staging of considerable intelligence and invention”. Broadway After London, the creative team decided that the show had to be reimagined from the top down. Trevor Nunn brought in playwright Richard Nelson to recreate the musical as a straightforward “book show”. Nunn brought in new, younger principals after he disqualified Paige from the role of Florence by insisting Nelson recreate the character as an American. The story changed drastically, with different settings, characters, and many different plot elements, although the basic plot remained the same.

As Benny Andersson put it to Variety: “The main difference between London and here is that in London there is only about two or three minutes of spoken dialog. Here, in order to clarify some points, it is almost one-third dialog”. The changes necessitated the score to be reordered as well, and comparisons of the Broadway cast recording and the original concept album reveal the dramatic extent of the changes. Robin Wagner completely redesigned the set, which featured a ground-breaking design of mobile towers that shifted continuously throughout the show, in an attempt to give it a sense of cinematic fluidity. The first preview on 11 April 1988 ran 4 hours with an unexpected 90 minute intermission (the stage crew reportedly had problems with the sets); by opening night on 28 April, it was down to 3 hours 15 minutes. But despite a healthy box-office advance, the Broadway production did not manage to sustain a consistently large audience and closed on 25 June, after 17 previews and 68 regular performances. “And there I was, on closing night, singing and sobbing along”, later wrote Time magazine critic Richard Corliss.

Overall, the show (capitalized at $6 million) since its opening, according to Variety, “has been doing moderate business, mainly on the strength of theater party advances”, but by mid-June it mostly have been used up. Gerald Schoenfeld, co-producer of the show, elaborated on the reasons for folding the production: “The musical had been playing to about 80 percent capacity, which is considered good, but about 50 percent of the audience have held special, half-priced tickets. If we filled the house at 100 percent at half price, we’d go broke and I haven’t seen any surge of tourist business yet this season. The show needs a $350,000 weekly gross to break even, but only a few weeks since its April 28 opening have reached that…. You have to consider what your grosses are going to be in the future” (USA Today, June 21, 1988). The Broadway production picked up several major award nominations.

It got five nods from the Drama Desk Awards: Outstanding Actor in a Musical (David Carroll), Outstanding Actress in a Musical (Judy Kuhn), Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical (Harry Goz), Outstanding Music (Andersson and Ulvaeus) and Outstanding Lighting Design (David Hersey). Carroll and Kuhn also received Tony Award nominations in Leading Actor in a Musical and Leading Actress in a Musical categories. None of the nominations resulted in the win, but Philip Casnoff did receive the 1988 Theatre World Award for Best Debut Performance. The Original Broadway Cast recording of the musical was nominated for 1988 Grammy Award in the category Best Musical Cast Show Album (won by the Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods). Later on, the musical had developed a cult following based primarily on the score as heard on the original concept album (Frank Rich noted in his book Hot Seat that “the score retains its devoted fans”), while Nelson’s book became a frequent target of scorn from critics and fans alike, though it still has its supporters.

Many subsequent attempts have been made to fix its perceived problems, but nonetheless, Nelson’s book is still used in many American productions, because a contractual stipulation, ostensibly, prevents the London version, which many believe to be the source of the show’s popularity and appeal, from being performed within the United States. In 2001, in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle Tim Rice admitted that after the “comparative failure of CHESS, his all-time favourite, he became disillusioned with theatre.” He commented, “It may sound arrogant, but CHESS is as good as anything I’ve ever done. And maybe it costs too much brainpower for the average person to follow it”. Critical reception Many critics panned the show, most notably Frank Rich of The New York Times, who wrote that “the evening has the theatrical consistency of quicksand” and described it as “a suite of temper tantrums, [where] the characters … yell at one another to rock music”.

Howard Kissel of New York Daily News complained that “the show is shrilly overamplified” and “neither of the love stories is emotionally involving”, while Newsweek magazine called the show a “Broadway’s monster” and opined that “CHESS” assaults the audience with a relentless barrage of scenes and numbers that are muscle-bound with self-importance”. A few reviewers, however, praised it very highly. William A. Henry III wrote an exceptionally sympathetic review in Time: “Clear narrative drive, Nunn’s cinematic staging, three superb leading performances by actors willing to be complex and unlikeable and one of the best rock scores ever produced in the theater. This is an angry, difficult, demanding and rewarding show, one that pushes the boundaries of the form” (Time, May 9, 1988). His sentiments were echoed by William K.

Gale in Providence Journal: “A show with a solid, even wonderfully old-fashioned story that still has a bitter-sweet, rough-edged view of the world … exciting, dynamic theater … a match of wit and passion.” Richard Christiansen of Chicago Tribune suggested that “CHESS” falters despite new strategy”, yet concluded his review: “Audiences forgive a lot of failings when they find a show that touches them with its music, and “CHESS”, clumsy and overblown as it sometimes is in its three hours-plus running time, gives them that heart”. Welton Jones wrote in The San Diego Union-Tribune that CHESS “has one of the richest, most exciting scores heard on Broadway in years … Sadly, the music has been encumbered with an overwritten book and an uninspired staging … Truly, this is a score to be treasured, held ransom by a questionable book and production”. All critics agreed, though, on the three leading performances by Judy Kuhn, David Carroll and Philip Casnoff.

They were showered with praise — “splendid and gallant” (Newsweek), “powerful singers” (The New York Times), “remarkably fine” (New York Post) — especially Kuhn, whose performance Variety called a “show’s chief pleasure”. Benny Andersson commented on the negative Broadway reviews: “I really don’t know why they don’t like it … I do know that most of the audiences so far stand up and cheer for everyone at the end. They appear to get emotionally involved with the show, and they really like it” (Variety, May 4, 1988). 1989 to the present A few months after the show closed on Broadway, in January 1989, the concert version was performed in Carnegie Hall by the original cast in a sold-out benefit performance. In September of that year, Judy Kuhn joined forces with two main principals from the West End production (Körberg and Head) in Skellefteå, Sweden, where they performed in two concert presentations of the musical during finals of the 1989 Chess World Cup tournament.

CHESS was now a mixed success, combining the popularity of a smash hit album and the problems of a critically-derided script — in other words, fertile ground for those seeking to “get it right,” even though historical conditions and the fall of the Soviet Union severely compromised the timeliness of the story. The first major attempt at a revival was the American tour, which ran from January to July 1990. This tour, which starred Carolee Carmello, John Herrera, and Stephen Bogardus, was staged by Des McAnuff, who was brought in at the eleventh hour when Trevor Nunn declined to be involved. Robert Coe, the playwright who worked with McAnuff on revising the show, restored most of the original song order from London and deleted the new songs written for the Broadway version, but had only four weeks to complete a complex rewrite. (The performing editions in the United States retain Nelson’s book.) The seven-month-long tour was not a major success, but it did garner some positive reviews. A separate tour in the United Kingdom, starring Rebecca Storm and mostly based on the London production, was a smash.

Also in 1990 was the production at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, Illinois, near Chicago. Directed by David H. Bell and starring Susie McMonagle, David Studwell and Kim Strauss, it featured another reworking of the Nelson script. Bell’s version has been performed in Sacramento and Atlanta as well. Tim Rice was involved in a 1990 production in Sydney, Australia, where Jim Sharman directed a total rewrite done primarily by Rice. It starred Jodie Gillies, David McLeod, and Robbie Krupski, with the action shifted to an international hotel in Bangkok during the CHESS championships, and was a critical and popular success. A later Australian production opened at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne in 1997, with Barbara Dickson taking the lead role of Florence (not Svetlana, as she had sung on the original studio cast album). Co-stars included Derek Metzger and Daryl Braithwaite. CHESS was, even in 1990, trying to keep itself modern; the ending of the Cold War was noted in all new versions of the show.

Once the Soviet Union fell, the modernisation attempts died out, and the clock was set back: Tim Rice’s 1990 rewrite that played a brief run off Broadway went all the way back to 1972. The CHESS mania that had begun in the UK more or less died down to a string of occasional productions of the Broadway and London versions for the next decade. In 1995, the Los Angeles production of CHESS at Hollywood’s Hudson Theater starring Marcia Mitzman (who played Svetlana in the original Broadway production) as Florence and Sean Smith as Anatoly received critical praise. For their performances both Mitzman and Smith won an Ovation Award and a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award. On 12 and 13 May 2008, there were two concert performances at the Royal Albert Hall of a reworked CHESS, with further changes to the song list and almost no dialogue; Tim Rice described this in the concert program as the new “official version”. Josh Groban, Adam Pascal and Idina Menzel starred in the lead roles of Anatoly, Freddie and Florence respectively. Kerry Ellis also performed as Svetlana.

The recording of this concert cast was released on June 16, 2009, as a DVD and 2-CD cast album in the United States and PBS showed the concert on television on June 17 and 18. There are still touring and regional stagings in various parts of the world, such as the 2006 performance at the outdoor Minack Theatre in Cornwall, and a 4-month tour in early 2008 by the Rolling Stock Theatre Company. On September 3, 2009 Benny Andersson told London’s The Stage newspaper that plans are under way for a major revival of CHESS on Broadway, although it has not been officially confirmed. The open-air premiere of the Royal Albert Hall version of the show was held on Margaret Island (Budapest, Hungary) on August 7–8, 2010 by the crew of the famous Hungarian premiere of Dance of the Vampires. On October 30, 2010 it will open as an indoors production at the Magyar Színház.

The cast include Géza Egyházi as Anatoly, Éva Sári as Florence, János Szemenyei as Freddie and Tímea Kecskés as Svetlana. It is the third Hungarian CHESS-production after two short theatre runs from 1992 and 1995.[11] The first major revival of CHESS in the United States opened at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia on August 8, 2010, and was scheduled to run until September 26, 2010, but was extended through Oct 3. The musical was directed by Eric Schaeffer and starred Jeremy Kushnier as Freddie, Euan Morton as Anatoly, and Jill Paice as Florence. A new UK production opened at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle on August 27, 2010 and toured through to April 2011. The production was directed by Craig Revel Horwood with musical direction by Sarah Travis. The producer was Michael Harrison, who said that Tim Rice was actively involved in the production.

Revel-Horwood again adopted his innovative approach to staging, using a company of around 25 who, between them, acted, sung and played all of the music. An updated version of CHESS på Svenska premiered at Göteborgs Operan on 8 September 2012 and ran until Spring 2013. The show, directed by Mira Bartov and conducted by Anders Eljas (who arranged the music for CHESS and directed the London Symphony Orchestra both for the album recording and during the European tour of 1984), uses the graphic style of the comic world, with today’s surveillance society as a dramatic metaphor for the cold war. There was no direct involvement from Benny Andersson or Björn Ulvaeus. CHESS returned to London in February 2013, on a far smaller scale than on its previous residence in the UK capital. The Union Theatre in Southwark only seats around 50 people. Because of the intimate nature of the venue and the scaled down production that it necessitated, Sir Tim Rice commented that the incarnation was unlikely to transfer to the West End.

The Aribiter - Bjorn Skifs - from Chess - YouTube The Aribiter - Bjorn Skifs - from Chess Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Jan 13, 2013 Bjorn Skifs performs the The Arbiter from 1984's "Chess" concept LP later a hit musical. It was written by Tim Rice and the ABBA writing duo of Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus. This version merges the original song and the reprise. Category

Question: Which musical was written by Tim Rice with two ex-members of ABBA?
Answer: Chess