Chout

thumb|Set and costume designs by Mikhail Larionov for the 1921 premiere at the [[Théâtre de la Gaîté-Lyrique in Paris|400x400px]] Chout, Op. 21, is a ballet by Sergei Prokofiev. It was originally composed in 1915, then extensively revised at the request of Serge Diaghilev in 1921. The composer extracted an orchestral suite from it, Op. 21 bis. The ballet's full title is Tale of the Jester Who Outwits Seven Other Jesters (). The most commonly used title for the work is based on the French transliteration of the Russian word for "jester", shut.

== Background == Chout was Prokofiev's first completed ballet score for Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev had first commissioned Ala and Lolli but rejected the score submitted by Prokofiev. Although the composer recast some of the music as the Scythian Suite, the projected ballet never saw the light of day. Instead, Diaghilev asked Prokofiev to write a ballet based on a folk tale recorded by Alexander Afanasyev. The story had been previously suggested to Diaghilev by Igor Stravinsky as a possible subject for a ballet, and Diaghilev and his choreographer Léonide Massine helped Prokofiev to shape this into a ballet scenario.