I've been asked a lot this season, "why haven't you been reviewing show logos this year, Jeff?" Well, to be honest, it's because I am pretty disappointed in them so far. But, due to popular demand, I will provide my two-cents on each after all. Up first, the season's two new revivals (I'm not counting the returns of Mamma Mia! or Beetlejuice. Both are recycling the original staging and the original logos.). I will start by saying that the original Broadway logos for both of these are among my all-time favorites. Having said that, I am not going to compare them any more than that.
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Broadway Musical Logos: 2025-2026 Season
The Revivals
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This one's a partial head-scratcher. Partial because while I don't find it creative, it does make sense to use a photograph of the show's stars as part of the key art. It is a fair hedge for the advertisers. Chess was a huge flop last time around, and using photos of the stars will certainly draw their fans if the title won't. Using black and white seems to add to the gravity and seriousness of the work, too. If you know the show, it suggests the love-triangle aspect of the plot. But for the uninitiated, since they aren't looking at each other, many people will miss that.
The rest of the logo, and admittedly there's not much more to it, has me at a loss. Chess as a topic for a show has always been a bit of a stretch, but literally nothing about this even hints at the game - not even the title. With a font as boring as the game's reputation and an absolutely ridiculous choice of color, it is beyond me how this was green-lit. And don't get me started on the teeny-tiny "THE MUSICAL" in red. Finally, why is the title font not the same as the rest - or better, why isn't it more substantially different than the rest? Even a couple of chess pieces and a new font couldn't save this, as these earlier iterations prove:
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Why oh why couldn't James McMullen come out of retirement to do something really beautiful for this important production. Bless him, at 91, I get it. But damn, what a missed opportunity. Even more egregious is what they came up with. This reeks of rudimentary clip art and Microsoft word art. While I appreciate that the colors are Old Glory adjacent, the red is pretty unattractive, and is saved only by the blue that is close to the green hue of the Statue of Liberty.
Speaking of that, the saving grace of this lackluster show art is the Lady Liberty torch held up by a variety of multicultural hands, all reaching for it. It really is the perfect metaphor for what happens in the show (and in America generally throughout time). But could the title be any less interesting? Not even the Word Art wave style doesn't help. Is it the flag waving? Uninspiring.
Grade: C-
