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.
Chess is not a serious musical. Fine. Good, even! When the show is at its best, it hits levels of unironic ludicrousness that are more fun than most things on Broadway. Back in 1988 Frank Rich ripped Chess’s American premiere a new one: ‘The characters,’ he wrote in the Times, ‘yell at one another to rock music.’ Yes, they absolutely do. And I had a great time.
This is the Broadway show of the fall that some will claim to dislike and yet most everyone will enjoy, even if that has to be in secret. Happily, that’s a match for one of the main themes of a 1980s musical that always saw geopolitics, even the dangers of nuclear proliferation, as games played by those who enjoyed the strategizing.
| 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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