A Broadway revival of Chess is in the works, reveals Tim Rice

Plans for a Broadway revival of Chess are in the works.

Tim Rice, who wrote the musical with ABBA’s Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, has revealed hopes that the show will return to Broadway “fairly soon”.

Chess first started life as a concept album in 1984 before numerous productions and tours including runs in both the West End and Broadway in the late 1980s.

A new West End revival took place in 2018 alongside a production at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., at the time tipped as a pre-Broadway try out.

Giving a latest update on the musical’s return to New York, Rice revealed on his podcast: “The musical I wrote in the early 80s with Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, Chess, has had by far the most complex history of any of the shows with which I have created.

“All I wanted to do was to tell a straightforward story of a love affair between a Westerner and a Soviet in the time of the Cold War in the mid 1970s with an international chess tournament- the event that brought the lovers together.”

He added: “All in all, despite enumerable mishandlings, Chess has more than held its own on the stages of the world. And we plan to come back to Broadway one day fairly soon. A team in in place.

“And above all, I’d love there to be a movie version. The Queen’s Gambit has shown how well that could work.”

The most recent production at Kennedy Center featured a cast that included Ramin Karimloo, Raúl Esparza, Karen Olivo and Ruthie Ann Miles. The 2018 West End revival starred Michael Ball, Tim Howar, Cassidy Janson and Alexandra Burke.