B.A. in Music, Reed College, Portland, Oregon

Robert Chesley is best remembered as a playwright, though he was also an author, critic and composer. He was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and taught in private schools in upstate New York for nearly ten years before settling in New York City in 1976. He relocated to San Francisco in the early 1980s where he became a part of the gay theater scene.

Chesley composed during the ten-year period 1965 to 1975 and his compositions were almost exclusively for voice. Between 1966 and 1970 he composed 53 songs, mostly to texts by American poets including Emily Dickinson, Willa Cather and James Agee, and including sixteen settings of the British poet Walter de la Mare. There are also several choral works from the 1970s, with texts by Gertrude Stein and Walt Whitman among others. His few instrumental works include the score to a 1972 film by Erich Kollmar, the Sonata for Guitar and Harpsichord (1974), and the Little Concerto for Two Flutes and String Orchestra (1968), which was revived in 1991 in a Benson Series concert of Downtown Music Productions, conducted by Mimi Stern-Wolfe.

The transformation of Robert Chesley, composer to Robert Chesley, playwright roughly coincided with his move to San Francisco. In 1984 the city’s Theatre Rhinoceros produced his first one-act, Hell, I Love You and in 1984 Chesley’s Night Sweat became the first produced full-length play to deal with AIDS. In all, Chesley wrote ten full-length and twenty-one one-act plays. Several works were premiered posthumously and all of his major plays have been published.

Robert Chesley died of AIDS in San Francisco at the age of 47 on December 5, 1990.

WORKS:

MUSICAL WORKS

Songs for Treble Voice and Piano

All But Blind (1966) Walter de la Mare

Autumn (1966) Walter de la Mare

By the Willow (1966) Arthur Waley (translated from the Chinese)

Four Animal Songs (1968)
duration: 6:00
    Far Away (Elizabeth Coatsworth)
    The Frogs' Wedding (Elizabeth Coatsworth)
    Four Little Foxes (Lew Sarett)
    Poor Old Horse (anon)

Four Songs (1967) Walter de la Mare
    The Solitary Bird
    Not One
    The Sleeping Child
    Earth Folk

Four Winter Songs (1969) Walter de la Mare
    Crumbs
    Snow
    Winter Company
    A Snowdrop

The Happy Child (1966) William Henry Davies

Here I Sit Like a Princess (1966) Grace Fallow Norton

The Huntsmen (1966) Walter de la Mare

I went to thank her (1966) Emily Dickinson

In the Valley of the Elwy (1966) Gerard Manley Hopkins

The last night that she lived (1966) Emily Dickinson

Lovers How They Come and Part (1966) Robert Herrick

New feet within my garden go (1966) Emily Dickinson

Nobody knows this little rose (1966) Emily Dickinson

The Old Stone House (1966) Walter de la Mare

Peace (1966) Gerard Manley Hopkins

September. 1918 (1966) Amy Lowell

Six Imagist Songs (1965)
for: soprano and piano (or soprano and orchestra)
duration: 10:00
    Pear Tree (H.D.)
    Oread (H.D.)
    The Pond (Amy Lowell)
    The Warning (Adelaide Crapsey)
    Wind and Silver (Amy Lowell)
    Night Clouds (Amy Lowell)
premiere: Reed College, Portland, OR 1965

A soft sea washed around the house (1966) Emily Dickinson

Spring and Fall (1966) Gerard Manley Hopkins

Still Own Thee (1966) Emily Dickinson

Summer, 1967 (1967)
    Evening Song (Willa Cather)
    In Media Vita (Willa Cather)
    Lullaby (Palmer Brown)

Summer, 1970 (1970)
    The Flood (William Henry Davies)
    Sleep, angry beauty, sleep (Thomas Campion)
    Children at Play (William Henry Davies)
    In Deep Sleep (Walter de la Mare)
    Things (Walter de la Mare)

Theme and Variations (1969) James Agee
duration: 15:00

Three Poems of Thomas Hardy (1969)
duration: 5:00
    During Wind and Rain
    Lying Awake
    Proud Songsters
premiere: Kristin Norderval, soprano, Susan McCarthy, piano, Society of Gay and Lesbian Composers concert, San Francisco, CA, March 1986

To Daffodils (1966) Robert Herrick

To Meddowes [sic] (1966) Robert Herrick

Two Songs (1968) Walter de la Mare
    The Snowdrop
    Five of Us

Who occupies this house? (1966) Emily Dickinson

Songs for Voice and Instruments

Incidental music to The Land of Heart's Desires (1969) William B. Yeats
for: child soprano, optional alto, toy organ, recorder, two guitars
duration: 3:00
premiere: Dutchess School, Millbrook, NY 1969

Night Quintet (1966) Emily Bronte
for: alto and string quartet
duration: 4:00
    Oh evening, why is thy light so sad?
    I know not how it falls on me
    'Tis moonlight, summer moonlight

Six Imagist Songs (1965)
for: soprano and orchestra (or soprano and piano)
duration: 10:00
    Pear Tree (H.D.)
    Oread (H.D.)
    The Pond (Amy Lowell)
    The Warning (Adelaide Crapsey)
    Wind and Silver (Amy Lowell)
    Night Clouds (Amy Lowell)

Three Bagatelles (1965) Gerard Manley Hopkins
for: soprano, flute, violin, viola, cello
duration: 8:00
    Peace
    Spring and Fall
    In the Valley of the Elwy
note: each song also for voice and piano, listed above

Three Lullabies (1967) Walter de la Mare
for: soprano and orchestra
duration: 10:00
    Not One
    Earth Folk
    The Sleeping Child
note: each song also for voice and piano, listed above under Four Songs

Songs for Multiple Voices/Chorus

Anthem: Come, Lovely and Soothing Death (1976) Walt Whitman
for: SSAATTBB chorus
duration: 6:00

Deathsongs (1976) Miriam Dyak
for: SA chorus or solo voices
duration: 5:00
    You seem so alive now
    You circle your bed like a dog
    Last night I dreamed we put you in the toy box
    I saw your coffin today

Forgiveness (1968) Walter de la Mare
for: SATB
duration: 3:00

In the Beginning (1975?) Gospel of John (King James Version)
for: SATB
duration: 10:00

Ladies' Voices (1973) Gertrude Stein
for: 2 soprano soloists and SA chorus
duration: 8:00
premiere: Bennett College, Millbrook, NY 1974 (?)

Mildred's Thoughts (1975) Gertrude Stein
for: soprano and alto soloists, SA chorus, viola, organ
duration: 12:00
premiere: Bennett College, Millbrook, NY 1976

The Spectacle (1967) Walter de la Mare
for: SATB
duration: 10:00

To E.T.: 1917 (1967) Walter de la Mare
for: SATB
premiere: Vassar College Choir on tour, 1975

Two Madrigals (1966) Walter de la Mare
for: SATB
duration: 8:00
Swifts
All That's Past
premiere: Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco, inaugural concert of culture week for Gay Games II, August 1986

Instrumental Works

Fugue on a Brazilian Folk Tune (1972) Film music for Erich Kollmar
for: harpsichord
duration: 3:00

Little Concerto (1968)
for: 2 flutes and string orchestra
duration: 10:00

Sonata: Mr. Yorick in Italy (1974)
for: guitar and harpsichord
duration: 10:00
premiere: Bennett College, Millbrook, NY 1975

WRITINGS:

PLAYS
Beatitudes (1984)
Come Again: An Entertainment During The Siege (1987)
Dog Plays (1989)
Wild (Person, Tense) Dog
The Deploration of Rover
Hold
Fuck The Holidays: One Act Plays (1979-82)
Happy V.D.
April First
Arbor Day
Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts
The Scream
A Christmas Card
Hell, I Love You and Breaking Up: Fragments (1981)
Jerker, Or The Helping Hand (1985)
Video adaptation (TLA Video Management Inc., 1991)
Madeleine de Lucien (1985)
Miscellaneous One Act Plays (1981-1984)
A Dog's Life
Maggie's Play
Somebody's Little Boy
The Lost Doll
Laughter and Tears
Et Tu, Lesbo
(Untitled), a libretto
Nocturnes (1983)
Night Sweat (1983)
Pigman: A Comedy in Three Acts (1985-6)
Private Theatricals: Morning, Noon & Night (1990)
Stray Dog Story : An Adventure In Ten Scenes (1981)
Published with illustrations by Kimble Mead, and an introduction by Nicholas Deutsch (JH Press: ISBN 0935672117).
Hard Plays/Stiff Parts: The Homoerotic Plays of Robert Chesley (Night Sweat – Jerker – Dog Plays) includes notes on the plays by the author, with illustrations by Art Jagonosi and an introduction by Bert Herrman. (Alamo Square Press, 1990: ISBN 0962475114).

WITHDRAWN PLAYS
Daffodils
For the Kids
Gentle Annie

JOURNALISM
Articles for Gay Community News, Gayweek, The Advocate and Omega (1976-1978).

UNCOMPLETED WORKS:
Unknown

DISCOGRAPHY:
"Nobody knows this little rose" and "Autumn," Marshall Coid, countertenor, Mimi Stern-Wolfe, piano, Sudden Sunsets: Highlights from the Benson Series, Downtown Music Productions, Leonarda Records LE 354 (forthcoming).

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

• "AIDS in the Arts," by Ben Fong-Torres, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, March 28, 1993 (includes short profile of Chesley).

PERFORMING RIGHTS AFFILIATION:
N/A

RESOURCES:
Unknown

LITERARY AND MUSICAL EXECUTOR:
source for all musical works:
Nicholas Deutsch
72 Park Terrace West
New York, NY 10034
(212) 569-0407
deutsch.eubanks@juno.com

ARCHIVES:
Reed College Library
S.E. Woodstock Boulevard
Portland, OR 97202

Includes all musical scores, unpublished plays and journalism (1976-78).

San Francisco Public Library has most scores.

OTHER INFORMATION:
The Robert Chesley Award for Lesbian and Gay Playwriting is given annually by Publishing Triangle
www.publishingtriangle.org