‘Chess’ is a musical – with score by Benny Anderson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, and Tim Rice – which is set at the height of the Cold War in 1975. It follows two chess players – Frederick Trumper of the United States and Anatoly Sergievsky of the Soviet Union – as they compete against one another at the World Chess Championship in Merano, Italy. However, Freddie’s drug habits and bad temper cause him to lose his world championship title to his Russian counterpart – along with his ‘second’, and assistant, Florence, who falls in love with the emotionally troubled Soviet. After winning, Anatoly defects to the West, leaving his wife, Svetlana, and his two children, in order to live with Florence in England. A year later, the competition resumes in Bangkok, Thailand. Here, Anatoly tries to defend his title, whilst his former adviser – Molokov – uses Svetlana to try and blackmail him into returning to the USSR. Anatoly wins the championship again, but decides to return to the Soviet Union anyway in order to help free Western prisoners of war from the Russian regime.
My responsibility on this show is to be an Assistant Stage Manager, working alongside fellow ASMs, Rosie and Rachel, Deputy Stage Manager, Ryan, and Stage Manager, Babette. This involves responsibilities like assisting in propping the show, along with helping to run the wings and stage when we reach tech and performance. As I had never ASMd a show of this scale before I was initially excited to see how it would contrast with my former experiences of Stage Management. This show also comes with the added technical challenge of touring to another venue, meaning each prop would need to be catalogued and able to be transported, something that we would need to consider from the outset. As the design of the stage also expanded into the wings, this would also place additional pressure on on the SM team, as we would have to ensure our props cabinets and furniture storage was organised in a way so as to be easily accessible to actors, but without restricting their ability to navigate the backstage areas – something that would be particularly challenging on the smaller Athenaeum stage.