This fall, see powerhouse trio Tony Award® winner Aaron Tveit (Moulin Rouge!), acclaimed stage and screen star Lea Michele (Funny Girl, Glee), and breakout talent Nicholas Christopher (Sweeney Todd, Hamilton) in CHESS, a seductive showdown of love, loyalty, and power on a global stage. As two of the greatest chess players in the world compete for something beyond victory, the woman between them is caught in a high-stakes battle of desire and devotion.
Featuring a legendary score by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA and EGOT winner Tim Rice (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar), an exhilarating new book by Danny Strong (Dopesick, The Butler), and direction by Tony winner Michael Mayer (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Funny Girl), CHESS is Broadway’s boldest move yet and the must-see event of the season.
But while the show’s songs run furiously hot, its characters stay resolutely cold and uninvolving. And, the book—despite Pinkham’s comically authoritative guiding hand—remains a messy puzzle, using the lingering Cold War and 1980s nuclear superpower tensions to implausibly sex up, well, chess.
Giving what I think is his best-ever Broadway performance – actually making us feel sorry for the difficult Freddie – Tveit stops Act II in its tracks with his extraordinary rendition of the ultra-difficult ‘Pity the Child’… Frankly, for all its great songs, ‘Chess’ contains a few too many clunkers… Still, thanks to its superb stars, ‘Chess’ remains a knight – I mean night – to remember.
| 1984 | London Fringe |
London Concert London Fringe |
| 1986 | West End |
Original London Production West End |
| 1988 | Broadway |
Broadway Production Broadway |
| 1992 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway Revival Off-Broadway |
| 1992 | Milburn, NJ (Regional) |
Paper Mill Production Milburn, NJ (Regional) |
| 1997 | Australia |
Australian Revival Australia |
| 1998 | New York |
New York Concert New York |
| 2001 |
Nyack Concert |
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| 2003 | Broadway |
Actors' Fund Concert Broadway |
| 2018 | Washington, DC (Regional) |
Kennedy Center Broadway Center Stage Revival Washington, DC (Regional) |
| 2018 | West End |
London Coliseum Revival Production West End |
| 2025 | Broadway |
Broadway |
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