Heaven help our hearts, because Chess is returning to Broadway at last, stacked with an all-star cast. The cult-favorite musical has not officially graced the Broadway stage (save for a few one-night-only concerts) since its premiere in 1988, which ran for just two months.
Performances will begin in the fall in a Shubert-owned theatre, both to be announced. You can sign up for ticketing alerts at .
The cast will be led by Tony winner Aaron Tveit as Freddie Trumper, Lea Michele as Florence Vassey, and Nicholas Christopher as Anatoly Sergievsky. The performance will see Michele originating a role on the Main Stem for the first time since 2006's Spring Awakening. Get a sneak peek of the Broadway favorites in the video above.
With music from ABBA鈥檚 Benny Andersson and Bj枚rn Ulvaeus, and lyrics by Tim Rice, this first-ever Broadway revival will be refreshed with a new book by Emmy winner Danny Strong (Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 & 2), and a creative team featuring director Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening) and choreographer Lorin Latarro (Waitress). Brian Usifer will serve as music supervisor.
Based on an idea by Rice (and originally featuring a book by Richard Nelson), Chess tells the story of American and Russian chess champions playing a match against each other鈥攁nd competing for the same woman鈥攁t the height of the Cold War.
Chess began as a concept album released in 1984, after Tim Rice had mulled over the idea of a musical about the Cuban Missile Crisis for nearly a decade with his frequent collaborator Andrew Lloyd Webber, never quite beginning the project. In the early 1980s, he approached Andersson and Ulvaeus, who had been itching to find creative projects outside of their hit pop music group ABBA. The concept album dominated the charts worldwide, reaching number three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and earned global critical acclaim. Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson's duet "I Know Him So Well" even ranked number one on the U.K.'s singles charts for a month, and "One Night in Bangkok" was an international hit.
The album's popularity seemed to promise a successful theatrical adaption, but the original West End production opened in 1986 to mixed reviews. Elaine Paige, Tommy K枚rberg, and Murray Head, who all performed on the concept album, brought their roles to life onstage as part of the original London cast, with Siobh谩n McCarthy taking Barbara Dickson's place. Prolific director Michael Bennett was originally signed on to helm, but pulled out due to his declining health, and Cats director Trevor Nunn took over. Bennett's vision initially was to create a "multimedia" experience for audiences, with the theatre filled to the brim with television monitors, and the stage transformed into a tilted chess floor. The stage show's book expanded the original plot explored in the concept album, with the runtime peaking at three hours and 15 minutes long. London critics were admittedly dazzled by the score and scenic vision for the show, but nearly all expressed the book as being problematic to what would otherwise be a creative revelation.
The Broadway production鈥攚hich starred David Carroll, Judy Kuhn, Philip Casnoff, and Marcia Mitzman鈥攐pened to an even more negative critical reception, with reviewers nevertheless praising the score and the individual performances. Closing after just 17 previews and 68 performances, it seemed Chess' chance for success had passed. But via the concept album and later cast recordings from various stage productions, Chess found a devoted audience in the years since its premiere. In addition to several tours and West End revivals, a 2008 London concert staging featuring Josh Groban, Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal, and Kerry Ellis was recorded and released both as an album and a concert film.
Rice has been teasing a revival for years, even announcing that a 2018 Kennedy Center staging would come to the Main Stem (this production was also directed by Mayer and featured Strong's revised book). Though the Broadway bow did not materialize that time around, the show was last seen in New York in a 2022 starry benefit concert for the Entertainment Community Fund, also using Strong's revised script and starring Darren Criss, Tony winner Lena Hall, Ramin Karimloo, and Solea Pfeiffer.
And the show's passionate fans are clearly eager for a Broadway return. The search phrase "Chess Revival" (prior to this article publishing and the news becoming public) turns up thousands of social media posts begging for a revival, with one fan writing that as soon as one is announced, and another taking that claim to the next level, joking that they will
Chess will be presented by arrangement with Three Knights, the Shubert Organization and Robert Fox Ltd.
