The Chess Game - A Musical for high schools and youth groups
Parts for everyone and everyone has a part
The story is timeless.
Easily staged - the setting is a large chess board.
The characters - "a lot like you and me" - are the pieces.
There are many strong parts for girls as well as boys.
Free backing tracks
Alan Burgess - Frome Youth Choirs - January 2007
We gave two performances and at the end of the first the entire audience rose to its feet. ....... your music enthused the children so much that they threw themselves into it 100%..... People are still talking about it. Everyone loved it!...
Robin Hall - BBC - Radio Scotland
“a wonderful opening......an enthralling musical.”
Edinburgh Festival Times
“..refreshingly enthusiastic...a large cast sings tunefully.. and the songs have catchy toe-tapping rhythms....the lyrics are humorous and clever....”
Edinburgh Evening News - August 2011
A JAZZY score and light-hearted banter underpin the strong and serious message......It is both a timely piece of entertainment and one which is perfectly weighted for its young performers...what makes this production so entrancing.... It entices the performers out of their comfort zones - but not so far as to leave them exposed - with strong music and great rhythms that are complex in structure, but satisfying
Primary Times - August 2011
The ensemble numbers are magnificent, while the quieter numbers, such as the excellent "I Hear the Bell Toll" convey the powerful emotion of the show.
Reviews
Poster design courtesy of Scott Taylor.
As a music teacher I noticed that when school show auditions came round often the girls outnumbered the boys. Yet many established musicals are very male oriented in the distribution of lead parts. “The Chess Game” addresses this problem head on. There are strong parts for girls in the two Queens, Pawn 2, Pawn 3 and Pawn 5. The Knights and the Bishops are non gender specific but probably best played by girls or a mixture of boys and girls. Boys can have a lot of fun playing the Kings and the black Rooks - “Bob” and “Bertie” - but apart from Pawn 1, they are principally speaking roles and only required to sing in the chorus.
“The Chess Game” was first performed by the pupils of Greenfaulds High School in Cumbernauld in June 1983. It was subsequently recorded by the BBC at a performance in Cumbernauld Theatre and broadcast by Radio Scotland in 1984 and again in 1985. Forth Children’s Theatre heard the broadcast and subsequently performed it at the Edinburgh Festival fringe in August 1985. There have been many performances by different groups since then but I was delighted to be asked back to do the musical again with Forth Children’s Theatre and their excellent production team in 2011. It was very well received and the response has prompted me to make it more widely available through the internet.
Music by Iain MacDonald. Lyrics and script by Iain MacDonald and Iain Fraser.
Background