How ‘Chess’ Went From Cult Fave to Broadway Breakout—With the Help of a Winning Score
It was a heck of an opening gambit: In its first week on Broadway, the new revival of “Chess” earned more than $1.2 million from just four sold-out performances. A few weeks later, the show, headlined by stars Lea Michele, Aaron Tveit and Nicholas Christopher, broke the house record at the Imperial Theatre for a seven-performance week, topping $1.7 million. And the week after, it broke the theater’s eight-performance record with a $2 million haul.
Not bad for an under-the-radar title that famously flopped on Broadway 40 years ago.
In those intervening decades, the score of “Chess,” written by the ABBA songwriting duo of Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and featuring tunes “I Know Him So Well,” “Nobody’s Side,” “Anthem” and the Top 40 hit “One Night in Bangkok,” picked up a cult following of superfans — and as the new production makes clear, that cult turned out to be larger than almost anyone expected. That fact, paired with the appeal of the revival’s cannily marketed stars, has helped make the show one of fall’s biggest box office breakouts.
“It’s a really engaged fan base,” says producer Tom Hulce, who’s been involved in the project for a decade. “As far as we can tell, the majority of people have never seen a production. It’s this broader cross-section who came across the music in high school or college, or they love ‘One Night in Bangkok’ but until recently had no idea it came from a show.”
In addition to marketing to the surefire fans—“Really, that core group found us,” says fellow producer Robert Ahrens — the show’s promotional strategy aimed to attract new followers with its three leads: Tony winner Tveit, rising talent Christopher (“Sweeney Todd”) and Michele, the former “Glee” star who proved her box office muscle when she stepped into the 2022 revival of “Funny Girl.”
“There was a sexy edge to that initial artwork, and a little bit of an air of mystery,” says Ahrens of the campaign, which featured the trio in a series of sultry black-and-white shots. The subsequent release of three songs from the production, showing off the vocal chops of the leads — and getting traction in outlets like Entertainment Weekly — further fueled buzz.
The aim now is to maintain sales momentum with fresh TV ads that showcase not just the stars but the entire production, with its cast of 23 and orchestra of 18. It appears to be working: Over Thanksgiving week the show set a new house record, earning $2,066,742 for eight performances.
Reviews for the new “Chess” — which has a fresh book by Danny Strong that aims to make sense of the original production’s confusing plot — have been decidedly mixed, but no critic seemed able to resist the allure of the score. Audience enthusiasm, in any event, seems undampened.
“That original production may have had a problem or two,” says Robert Wankel of the Shubert Organization, which is both a producer of the show and the owner of the Imperial. “But the music never did.”
Not bad for an under-the-radar title that famously flopped on Broadway 40 years ago.
In those intervening decades, the score of “Chess,” written by the ABBA songwriting duo of Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and featuring tunes “I Know Him So Well,” “Nobody’s Side,” “Anthem” and the Top 40 hit “One Night in Bangkok,” picked up a cult following of superfans — and as the new production makes clear, that cult turned out to be larger than almost anyone expected. That fact, paired with the appeal of the revival’s cannily marketed stars, has helped make the show one of fall’s biggest box office breakouts.
“It’s a really engaged fan base,” says producer Tom Hulce, who’s been involved in the project for a decade. “As far as we can tell, the majority of people have never seen a production. It’s this broader cross-section who came across the music in high school or college, or they love ‘One Night in Bangkok’ but until recently had no idea it came from a show.”
In addition to marketing to the surefire fans—“Really, that core group found us,” says fellow producer Robert Ahrens — the show’s promotional strategy aimed to attract new followers with its three leads: Tony winner Tveit, rising talent Christopher (“Sweeney Todd”) and Michele, the former “Glee” star who proved her box office muscle when she stepped into the 2022 revival of “Funny Girl.”
“There was a sexy edge to that initial artwork, and a little bit of an air of mystery,” says Ahrens of the campaign, which featured the trio in a series of sultry black-and-white shots. The subsequent release of three songs from the production, showing off the vocal chops of the leads — and getting traction in outlets like Entertainment Weekly — further fueled buzz.
The aim now is to maintain sales momentum with fresh TV ads that showcase not just the stars but the entire production, with its cast of 23 and orchestra of 18. It appears to be working: Over Thanksgiving week the show set a new house record, earning $2,066,742 for eight performances.
Reviews for the new “Chess” — which has a fresh book by Danny Strong that aims to make sense of the original production’s confusing plot — have been decidedly mixed, but no critic seemed able to resist the allure of the score. Audience enthusiasm, in any event, seems undampened.
“That original production may have had a problem or two,” says Robert Wankel of the Shubert Organization, which is both a producer of the show and the owner of the Imperial. “But the music never did.”