Can an All-Star Team of Broadway Vets Finally Crack ‘Chess’?

Chess—a show about dueling grand masters, one Russian and one American, facing off at the peak of the Cold War—has always been a confounding musical. Its score is filled with undeniable bangers, courtesy of ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. Yet its original book, by Tim Rice (who cowrote the lyrics with Ulvaeus), was widely regarded as an incomprehensible mess. Theater luminaries from Michael Bennett to Trevor Nunn have sought to crack the story, all to no avail. When Chess opened at New York’s Imperial Theater in the spring of 1988, it earned scathing reviews and closed just two months later. It hasn’t been on Broadway since.

Then Danny Strong, the Gilmore Girls star turned Emmy-winning screenwriter, had a wild idea. “I want to fix Chess and I want you to direct it,” he told Michael Mayer one night. Mayer—the Tony-winning director who has helmed canonical Broadway productions of Thoroughly Modern Millie, Spring Awakening, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch—was intrigued. “I woke up the next morning, and there was an email from Michael saying, ‘I’m in,’ ” says Strong.

They’re finally ready to bring their vision of Chess to Broadway. With Ulvaeus’s, Andersson’s, and Rice’s blessing, Strong and Mayer have retooled the musical for an all-star cast featuring Nicholas Christopher, Tony winner Aaron Tveit, and Glee star Lea Michele. Thanks to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s frenemy-ship, the project suddenly feels more timely than it has since the Berlin Wall came crashing down. Current American-Russian relations are “so reminiscent of early Cold War ideology,” says Mayer. “The stakes are so resonant to what we’re living through right now,” agrees Strong—“the fear and emotion and unpredictability.”

“I think that there are a lot of people that are going to understand the political importance of our show and the state of our world right now,” Michele adds. “I don’t like to be a part of anything that doesn’t have something to say.”

Thanks to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s frenemy-ship, the project suddenly feels more timely than it has since the Berlin Wall came crashing down.

This Chess stands alone: “We really are making our own thing. The story that we’re doing isn’t based on any previous version,” says Mayer. At the same time, the creative team had to make their fresh story fit within the parameters set by the show’s indelible score. “There will, of course, be similarities; they’re baked into the DNA of the material,” says Mayer. But in his and Strong’s version, the characters have different relationships—“to each other and to their countries.”

Mayer and Strong also leaned into the Cold War aspect, injecting the show’s fictional plot with actual historical events. To further clarify a convoluted narrative, they turned an ancillary character called The Arbiter into an emcee of sorts—a figure akin to Che, the narrator of Evita, who can guide the audience through the revamped story while also referencing the current political climate.

The Chess revival’s timing is uncanny. Weeks before rehearsals began, Trump flew to Alaska for a summit with Putin—potentially a step toward ending the war in Ukraine. It was the two world leaders’ first in-person meeting since 2019. “We’re perhaps living through a second Cold War between these nations,” says Strong. Tveit puts it another, bleaker way: “We might be closer to the moment of somebody pushing that button than people thought they were in the early ’80s.”

Still, Strong and Mayer’s vision couldn’t come to life until they found performers with the chops to pull off both demanding vocals and a dramatic central love triangle. Hearing the final trio sing together is “jaw-droppingly delicious,” Mayer teases. “Their chemistry is great.”

Christopher stars as chess champion Anatoly “The Russian” Sergievsky. As Mayer says, the versatile Christopher “can do anything”—he’s performed roles from Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors to Sweeney Todd. A Broadway vet with five shows under his belt, the Bermuda-born, Boston-raised Christopher has been preparing by immersing himself in Russian culture.

“I have a Russian friend. He was born in the Soviet Union, and he came to America when he was, like, 13 years old,” the actor says. “He’s been introducing me to his family. He’s telling me different sayings in Russian. We got drunk on vodka together. A lot of our conversation I can’t remember.”At least one kernel stuck with Christopher: “He told me, ‘To understand Russia is to know that you can never understand Russia.’ I was like, ‘What does that mean?’ He’s like, ‘I don’t know, but it’s Russian.’ ”

Christopher is keenly aware of the ways in which his own identity informs the character. At the end of act one, Anatoly sings the soaring “Anthem,” about his complex love for his homeland—a feeling Christopher can’t help but relate to. “It’s complicated, right?” he says. “To have such a deep-rooted love for where you come from, yet does where you come from have the love for you back?”

Christopher faces off against Tveit’s American chess master, whose name—for real—is Freddie Trumper. (How did Rice know to call the character that? “He’s the Nostradamus of the ’80s,” says Tveit.) A Tony winner for originating the role of Christian in Moulin Rouge!, Tveit got the part after Michele met with her friend Jonathan Groff while the project was still in development. “I was like, ‘If they don’t find a good Freddie, we cannot do this show.’ And he said, ‘Well, then you have to call Aaron Tveit,’ ” she recalls. “You know what I did? I called Aaron Tveit.” It’s one of the most demanding roles of Tveit’s career. “Freddie, the American, is a motherfucker to sing,” says Mayer. But Tveit is more than up for it: “I like a challenge,” he says.

“People that know the show have such a close tie to the music,” he continues. “When you work on that a little bit as an actor, sometimes it’s your job to get out of the way. Let the music do its thing.”

Tveit’s role is loosely based on real-life American prodigy Bobby Fischer, who defeated a Russian opponent at the world championship in 1972—making him the first American ever to win the title. His triumph was short-lived: Fischer eventually descended into paranoia and became a recluse.

“Bobby Fischer thought that the Russians were spying on him, and they all made him seem like he was crazy. But then, of course, they were spying on him. So we have a little bit of that in this show,” says Tveit. “Freddie might be crazy, but the things they are calling him crazy for are actually true. It’s really an interesting acting piece, because it’s all about mental health.”

As far as actual chess goes, the three stars have varying levels of experience. Christopher is planning a trip to Brighton Beach to play chess with some Russians. Tveit learned the game from his father but hasn’t played in years. “I have a couple buddies who play on chess.com. Serious players,” he says. They’ve been giving him helpful pointers offline, but he’s not ready to take his talents to the World Wide Web just yet: “Oh, I don’t want to go on and have this terrible rating,” he says. “I’m hoping to make a splash on chess.com.” Michele, meanwhile, is hitting the books to up her own chess game. “I did buy Chess for Dummies, for me and Aaron,” she says. She also has her own personal tutor: “Jonathan Groff has been giving me some private lessons.”

Chess will be something of a homecoming for Michele, bringing her back to the Imperial—where she began her Broadway career as a child in Les Misérables almost 30 years ago—and reuniting her with Mayer, who directed her in both Spring Awakening and her triumphant onstage comeback vehicle, Funny Girl. Working on the latter “was such a profound thrill,” says Mayer. “Right after she opened, we started saying, ‘Okay, what are we going to do next?’ ”

She plays Florence Vassey, a brilliant chess strategist caught between the two men. Ironically, Michele is following in the footsteps of Idina Menzel—who played Michele’s mother on Glee and memorably sang the role of Florence at a concert version of Chess performed at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2008.

“I owe so much to Idina. She really inspired me to play this part. Like, I’ll cry right now,” Michele says, welling up. “When she was in Wicked and I was in Spring Awakening, I waited outside the stage door for her autograph. I just wanted to be her. I found out that she would do yoga on Wednesdays between shows—so I would go to Wednesday yoga just to be near her.”

Michele and her costars were intimately involved in bringing the new Chess to life, participating in multiple readings and workshops over the past six months. A few weeks out from their first rehearsal on September 2, things were still in flux. “I just read the new version yesterday,” says Tveit. “It’s still evolving.” While everyone has contributed to the new version of the show, Strong can’t help but single out Michele, who “had the smartest notes” for fleshing out Florence. “They were really insightful ideas—enriching her, giving her more agency,” he says. “She’s not just functioning as part of a love triangle but has her own goals and drives.”

“I find myself to be a very strong woman, but playing strong female characters is actually a challenge for me,” says Michele. “I find I’ve always hid behind comedy, and I don’t have that here. There’s a real sense of vulnerability. I feel naked in so many ways because of that, to just stand in her truth and her power.”

Chess also may have introduced Michele to her new favorite song. For as long as she can remember, “Don’t Rain on My Parade” has been her signature number. But while she was mulling her next professional move, the Chess team suggested she listen to “Nobody’s Side”—a powerful rock ballad. After Michele took their advice, it was checkmate. “I was like, ‘This is my new anthem.’ ”

Sittings Editor: Daniel Edley. Hair, Jessica Ortiz (Tveit), Marki Shkreli (Michele); Makeup, Carolina Dali (Michele); Manicure, Joyce Zheng (Michele); Grooming, Melissa Dezarate (Christopher), Jessica Ortiz (Tveit); Tailor, Susan Balcunas. Produced On Location By Madi Overstreet. For details, go to VF.com/credits.