Productions1 on Broadway
| 1966 | Locust Theatre Original. March 8, 1966 · Albert Marre |
Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. West End runs are not yet held.
Licensing not confirmed
| Rights | — We have not been able to confirm the publisher. |
Read from the licensor's own pages and catalogues. Rights move, and an empty row means we have not confirmed a publisher, not that the show cannot be licensed.
In the literature12 passages
a revival of the musical Chu Chem (1989). book:at-this-theatre-100-years-of-broadway-shows-stories-and-botto-louis-viagas-rober#p152
LEIGH, MITCH (BORN IRWIN MICHNICK, 1928– ). A composition student of Paul Hindemith at Yale and a jazz musician, Leigh won a Tony Award for his most successful Broadway score, Man of La Mancha (1965). He also wrote the less-successful musicals Cry for Us All (1970), Saravà (1979), Chu Chem (1989), and Ain’t Broadway Gr… book:historical-dictionary-of-the-broadway-musical-volume-22-william-a-everett-paul-r#p226
Afterlife: Having followed Man of La Mancha (1965) with seven—count ’em—consecutive flops, Mitch Leigh finally brought Chu Chem to Broadway's Ritz Theatre (now the Walter Kerr). Surprisingly enough, it failed. book:more-opening-nights-on-broadway-a-critical-quotebook-of-compiled-by-steven-suski#p1033
Perhaps no show ever had a weirder initial idea and story than Chu Chem, which opened and closed in Philadelphia in November 1966. book:not-since-carrie-forty-years-of-broadway-musical-flops-ken-mandelbaum#p36
What is most unusual about Chu Chem, however, is that it came back. In 1988, Allan and Leigh decided to take another look at the show, and they were able to get Marre back to direct the show at the tiny Jewish Repertory Theatre on East Fourteenth Street. book:not-since-carrie-forty-years-of-broadway-musical-flops-ken-mandelbaum#p37
Chu Chem is one of the few examples of the “double flop” genre. book:not-since-carrie-forty-years-of-broadway-musical-flops-ken-mandelbaum#p38
Passages naming this show, found by keyword across 178 books. Where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.