‘Chess’ Flopped in the ’80s: Lea Michele, Aaron Tviet & Nicholas Christopher Talk Trying the Cult Classic Musical Again for a New Generation

When it comes to complex legacies, there are few musicals with a more confounding history than Chess. With its expansive pop-rock score created by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of pop supergroup ABBA and lyrics by theater legend Tim Rice, the show’s soundtrack has remained a staple for musical theater fans around the globe.

“That’s pretty much a miracle for a show that closed in two months on Broadway,” Nicholas Christopher tells Billboard. “It’s got to be the only one that’s like that.”

Since its short-lived stint on Broadway in 1988, Chess has long been considered a fantastic set of songs structured around a convoluted, hard-to-follow plot. The show revolves around a Cold War era chess tournament, where two grandmasters — one American and one Soviet — compete in a high stakes match, while tensions boil over in their relationships with one woman. The original book for the show also involves elaborate geopolitical maneuvering, questions of national identity and much more.

But the new Broadway revival of the show — which begins previews on Wednesday (Oct. 15) — aims to finally create a version of the show worthy of its legendary score. It certainly helps that the new production features three Broadway stars taking on its trio of lead roles. Christopher, who rose to prominence in the theater scene through performances in Hamilton and Sweeney Todd, plays the brooding Soviet grandmaster Anatoly Sergievsky; Aaron Tveit, the theater veteran who earned a Tony Award for his performance in Moulin Rouge!, plays the brash American grandmaster Freddie Trumper; and Lea Michele, the Emmy-nominated star of Glee who made a critically-lauded return to Broadway in the 2022 revival of Funny Girl, portrays the strong-willed Florence Vassy.

With a new book re-worked by Danny Strong and a suite of beloved theater songs, the new cast and crew of the show are confident in the show they’ll present to audiences starting on Wednesday night. In an exclusive video shared with Billboard, Rice and Andersson spoke during the show’s sitzprobe — the first rehearsal between the onstage performers and the orchestra — and expressed their confidence in the new production.

“It’s a great band, a great company, everyone’s happy,” Andersson says in the clip. “I think maybe it helps that they know that they have something to get their teeth into, because a lot of this [music] is not easy. Even if you’re a skilled musician, you have to work hard, and I think they like that. I hope they do!”

The show’s music supervisor Brian Usifer agrees with Andersson’s assertion, pointing out that the variety amongst Chess‘ songs are what keeps bringing audiences back — the same soundtrack can contain a classic Broadway ballad like “Someone Else’s Story” alongside a song that became a global pop hit like “One Night in Bangkok” (the track peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1985) without either style feeling at odds with the other.

“The score is thrilling, complex, and unapologetically ambitious,” he tells Billboard. “I’ve tried to highlight both the strength and power in its musical storytelling, and the beauty and vulnerability in its textures by focusing on supporting the incredible and unique voices of our principal actors. The result, I hope, is a score that feels classic while speaking powerfully to the present.”

Below, Billboard chats with Michele, Tveit and Christopher about bringing Chess back to Broadway, their reactions to meeting the score’s legendary composers, and much more:

You have your first preview on Wednesday night, how are each of you feeling about finally putting the show in front of an audience?

Nicholas Christopher: We’re at the point in the process where everything is terrifying. [Laughs.] Our process has actually been so smooth and actually really enjoyable, so it feels very vulnerable to now open up this experience to an audience. It’s like, “Oh, this has been so dear and such a beautiful experience, now I’m scared to open the doors for other people to come in.”

Aaron Tveit: As we were leaving the rehearsal studio, Lea was saying, “I’m gonna miss this time.” And I was like, “No, let’s get in the theater!” But now I totally understand what Lea meant, because as Nick said, we’ve all really enjoyed the process because we’re all huge fans of the show. We love it so much, and we’ve had this remarkable six weeks where it’s just kind of been this little bubble of the 150 people that are working on the show. Now we do have to get up and kind of give it to the world. But that’s also very, very exciting.

Lea Michele: I didn’t get to have this experience in my last show [Funny Girl] because I came in and it was already running, so I wasn’t involved in the rehearsal process. I haven’t done this in 18 years since I was in Spring Awakening, so I wasn’t prepared to enjoy this creative process as much as I did. There is a part of me that is definitely very anxious about opening it up, but with every stage that we have gone through with the show, I keep feeling like, ‘Yes, this is exactly where we’re supposed to be.’ So I know the minute we’re out there tomorrow, it’ll feel so right.

This version of the show now has a brand new book by Danny Strong. Without giving too much away, what can you tell us about this new take on the story?

A.T.: I think Danny has created a really smart story that weaves in all the songs in a wonderful narrative. But also, as hopefully great art does, it holds a bit of a mirror up to society, right? Sure, we’re talking about the Cold War and Cold War politics, but as people come in to enjoy this amazing music, they also will start to think about our culture today and our political climate today. The Cold War seems so far away, but if you really look at what’s happening in the world, we’re not that far away from it. So I like theater that makes people think. I love theater where you can come in and have an enjoyable evening, but then leave with something to think about, about our world and society. And I think Danny’s done a masterful job with that.

Chess has become this kind of sacred musical text that theater fans all refer back to, where everyone has their favorite cast recordings and their favorite songs. When each of you thinks about this show’s history, what ido you think it is about this music that continues to have such an impact with audiences over 40 years later?

N.C.: Before jumping into this process, when I heard the word Chess, I’d think of being in college and hearing people trying to scream these songs at the top of their lungs in the practice rooms. Now, everything moves so smoothly from one moment to the next that that piece of it is almost an afterthought, because when we jump into the story, we’re able to sort of ride the wave from scene to song over and over, and all of a sudden we’re at the end of the show and you’ve gone on this crazy journey of twists and turns and of these complicated characters and complicated relationships.

L.M.: Yeah, and if you’re familiar with the lore of Chess, there are a lot of factors and reasons as to why its fate was its fate. But I think one thing that was always undeniable and never in doubt was that the music is incredible. You have Tim Rice and Benny and Björn from ABBA collaborating together, and that just makes it extremely epic. I think what we feel so fortunate that we were able to take what is there in this incredible score and bring our connection amongst the three of us into the story, to bring the music to life and to bring these characters to life in an even more real and intimate way. And we get to sing our faces off!

A.T.: I also think it’s a really unique score for musical theater, specifically because it started as a concept pop album, with five or six singles that got released — I mean, “One Night in Bangkok” became a massive worldwide dance hit. I think about how ABBA has re-emerged in the cultural vernacular right now, with all these young kids discovering the band, and they’ve become an online trend. But then you add in Tim Rice, who’s one of the greatest theater lyricists of all time, and I think the combination of Tim with these amazing pop songwriters creates these incredible pop songs that also are rooted in story and narrative. It’s a very unique way that all the music works.

The three of you got the opportunity to work with Tim and Benny during rehearsals for the show — what was that like getting to be in the room with the people who created this show?

L.M.: We didn’t get to spend that much time with them until we were in our sitzprobe, which is probably for the best, because I fangirled over Tim Rice so badly. I think he might have me on a list somewhere now. [laughs] I just feel like I was born to sing his music, everything that he has ever written are my anthems of my life — from the entire Evita score to, “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.”

I really can’t believe that I’m in a Tim Rice musical right now. And then getting to meet Benny and work with him was unbelievable, even just thinking of the history and the legacy that is ABBA. I remember we were doing our rehearsal with the band for the first time, and Tim and Benny kept coming over and giving their thoughts and ideas. And I was just frozen looking at Nick like, “Is this really happening right now?” I was like, “I’ll do anything you want. Just tell me what to do.”

The score does have this tendency to jump all over the place in terms of genre and tone. When you have that kind of an expansive score, how does that change the way that you approach singing these songs eight shows a week?

A.T.: I think it only enhances our singing, to be honest. And I think what’s so interesting is all three of our characters have totally different music. Nick sings this amazing pseudo-classical, traditional Russian theater music, Lea is singing these anthemic pop ballads, and I’m basically singing American rock music. But then when Lea sings with me, it leans a little more into my lane, and when she sings with Nick, it leans into Nick’s lane. So they’ve actually done this really amazing job where all of us not only have our characters, but our own genres that we get to sing with a very unique voice. And I think that supports everything happening on stage. When you’re looking at something like that as an actor, it makes it very, very easy to say, “Oh, this is, this is so reminiscent of my personality and what the character does.”

L.M.: I do feel like this is, without a doubt, the hardest singing I’ve ever had to do in a show, and I’m coming off of playing one of the hardest female roles of all time, as are both Nick and Aaron coming from Sweeney Todd. That’s great because I love a challenge, and to have to kind of flip-flop back and forth between the different genres throughout the show based off of who I’m in a scene with is so exciting and exhilarating. I’ve had to do lots of different genres before, on television especially where I was singing a different song every week, but this is unlike anything I’ve ever done before.

N.C.: I’ve been lucky enough to do so many different types of genres. I’ve always felt like — and I don’t know if this harkens back to growing up in a biracial house or what — but I always felt like I had to choose one way [of singing] or another for whatever show I’m doing.

And the beauty of this show is that I get to use all parts of myself and all parts of my voice to express whatever the character is going through. The music and the emotion and the intention are never at odds with each other in this show, to the point where I don’t really have to think about genre when we’re performing. It comes from a pure place, and that’s how it sort of erupts out of your body when the when the music starts. Every decision these writers made is the exact right decision for the exact right moment, so you don’t have to think about it. You just allow it to come out of you.