Let’s talk about Chess, baby.

I like my musicals like I like my women: problematic.

It has come to my attention that far fewer people in my orbit know about the musical Chess, its origins, and why it is an eyebrow-raiser that it's getting a full-frontal, massively mounted production right here on good ol’ Broadway.

Chess is a musical. Chess began when Tim Rice, writer and lyricist for such old bangers like Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, was talking to Andrew Lloyd Webber about a musical centered on the Cuban Missile Crisis. But yeah, um, I guess they couldn’t flesh that one out. Besides, ALW was like, “Bro, hear me out – a musical based on that old Gaston Leroux novel, The Phantom of the Opera!”
Tim Rice scoffs and is like, “Good luck with that,” and goes with his other homeboys, the guys from ABBA.

Yep, ABBA. Fast forward a few years, and they’ve collaborated on a dramatic, moody, if highly synthesized concept album about an American and a Russian chess champion and the woman who loves them. (Ah, the Cold War. Simpler times.) This is juuuust before Les Miz and Phantom turned it all upside down, and right around the time Rocky fights Ivan Drago—and some of the score does sound like it was ripped from the Rocky IV soundtrack, with “One Night in Bangkok” standing in for “Livin’ in America.”

If you don’t have a heating pad plugged in near your bed, you might not know that “One Night in Bangkok” from Chess was an actual hit—with a music video and everything.
“I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine.”
Not sure what that means or if it’s supposed to be a threat, but goddamn, when Murray Head says it, I sit up straight.

Further proof of the score’s merits: Whitney Houston covered “I Know Him So Well” from Chess in a duet with her mom. I’m pretty sure the song is sung by a man’s wife and his lover, each thinking she knows the real him—which is a little creepy to sing with your mom. But back then, if Whitney wanted to sing a song, she fucking sang it.

So what’s the problem?
The book sucks.
They never stuck the landing on the script.

It opened in London in 1986 with the same cast as the original album (with the cool cover) to lukewarm reviews. Undeterred, they lugged it to Broadway, where it opened in 1988 with a rewritten book and a dumb poster, and by all accounts, it was even worse than the London production. The New York press trounced it. The NY Times Theatre Daddy, Frank Rich, described it as “a suite of temper tantrums where the characters yell at each other over rock music.”
I can think of a few shows that describes, but this article can hardly endure any more digressions.

And that’s that—except theatre nerds love the score, and it kind of never goes away, like this Amy Bradley thing. Over the years, there’s been a slew of productions and concerts that cherry-pick scenes and storylines from both versions, moving songs around and so on—most notably the 2008 concert version wherein Idina Menzel, Josh Groban, and Adam Pascal sang the shit out of it at Royal Albert Hall.

Well, now it’s 2025, and the announcement is made by the Shuberts themselves: the first-ever revival of Chess on Broadway will begin previews at the Imperial Theatre on October 16.

The cast is too good to be true, as these things go: Aaron Tveit, Nicholas Christopher—who astonished last year, taking a break from Sweeney Todd to star in Jelly’s Last Jam at City Center, then going back to Sweeney Todd.
(Only to be replaced by… Aaron Tveit. Dueling Sweeneys!)
But casting Lea Michele is kind of the main event, isn’t it? I mean, they put her right in the middle of the picture on the poster—only they don’t really make posters anymore.

Tim Rice is gonna have a big year, as Mamma Mia! is coming back to Broadway this season as well.
Oh, and Evita will almost certainly transfer from London starring Rachel Zegler.

Fucken-A, Tim Rice.

What about the book? I mean, that was the problem, right?

There’s a whole new book, written by… Peter Morgan, who wrote Patriots, which is about Russia?
Ayad Akhtar, who writes smart, timely plays and has a Pulitzer?
Lynn Nottage, who did a great job on the book for MJ?
Nope.

Danny Strong, who wrote The Hunger Games movies, rewrote the troublesome book.

Broadway musical about the Cold War stringing together a bunch of ‘80s techno-pop-rock numbers?
Get me the Hunger Games guy!