On the digital sign outside Broadway’s Imperial Theater, the stars of the new
version of the 1984 musical Chess look out seriously toward 8th Avenue. The show
is about an American chess champion, a Soviet chess champion, and the woman
caught between them.
Aaron Tveit, Lea Michele (who last appeared on Broadway in Funny Girl in 2023),
and Nicholas Christopher are shown in black-and-white photos with stern, slightly
dramatic expressions. The marquee suggests that this new production will be
a more serious and stylish take on a musical that many people have long treated
as a light or outdated Broadway show.