The musical CHESS is one that has a very special place in my heart. Since the time I first heard it’s most recognized hit, “One Night in Bangkok” on the radio circa 1986, that would have been enough. When I found out it was from a new London musical, I was intrigued enough to buy the LP. What I was rewarded with was a collection of the most amazing music I had heard form a musical to date, shocked even more to find it was the new project from Benny Andersson and Bjӧrn Ulvaeus, the guys from the recently disbanded international supergroup ABBA, whose demise I was still mourning. I bought the later New York CD when it was released, but the original Broadway production closed too fast for me to see it. In 2009, I had the honor of directing my first production, based on the lesser New York book, and nine years later I reassembled my trio of leads to direct the new, original London version of the show. I can safely wager I am the only director in the metro area on any level with that accomplishment under my belt, and kind of consider myself a connoisseur (if not an expert) of the show, it’s history, and its content. And for that reason alone, here is my first cover as a New York Broadway real time critic. (My only other Broadway piece was a rebuttal to the negativity of all the criticisms of The Cher Show, by other lesser critics who just didn’t get it, which ran before I had this forum.)
Let’s get into the show’s history to start. I’ll open with the easy pun in saying that the musical CHESS has a checkered past. The (traditional) opening number of the show, “The Story of Chess”, a history of how the game evolved as a way of demonstrating war maneuvers with model pieces on a checkered board, begins with the line “Each game of chess means there’s one less variation left to be played.” The same could be said for the story of CHESS. Every revival makes more unnecessary to overkill changes to a story that, though flawed, was never more solid than in its original conception. It’s just a crap shoot what the plot will be when you see a new production as each revival tries in vain to fix things that weren’t ever really broken.
The problems started when original London director Michael Bennett had to resign due to failing health from AIDS. Trevor Nunn replaced him but scaled down Bennett’s visionary multi-media set and costume plot to something less sensational. When one thinks how Bennett changed the way of musical story telling with his fast-paced, sleek, constant motion style of Dreamgirls, the ideas of what CHESS could have been are incomprehensible. Nunn’s disastrous contribution came when transferring to New York, where Nunn basically ruined the show, turning it from a thrilling pop opera to a traditional book musical because “that’s what Americans were used to”—which makes absolutely zero sense coming from the man who had just directed the current US sensation and Tony darling Cats. But add a book he did and it was the most plodding, clunky way to tell the story ever. The instance that sums it up is that they added a whole scene about spies in a cathedral just so the leading lady can sing “Heaven Help My Heart”, or a scene on a tabloid talk show where the host asks the American bad boy antihero, ‘Tell me about your childhood….”, as the song cue for “When I was five, I learned survival, taught myself not to care….”, the opening lyrics to his 11:00 number “Pity the Child”. The book was not only necessary, but convoluted and messy, Less coherent than before, they revised the show for it’s US National Tour, it’s 2003 Actors Benefit concert starring Josh Groban and Adam Pascal, a 2008 Royal Albert Hall Chess in Concert version also starring Groban and Pascal plus Idina Menzel as Florence, and the initial entry in the beloved (and most sadly missed) Kennedy Center’s Broadway Center Stage series with a newer brash rewrite by Danny Strong (Empire, Dopesick) which became the basis for a Broadway tryout for this new further rewritten version that opened in New York November, 2025.
While the story remains in theory the same–a grandmaster chess match between a bad boy US player and a Russian champion, inspired by the 70s tabloid ready matches between American Bobby Fisher and Russian Boris Spassky, told against the backdrop of the 80s Cold War with Russia. There are primarily three variables that change from revival to revival: 1) the case of Florence’s father, captured by the KGB and fate unknown as he is used as a bargaining tool with Florence; 2) the ending of the story and the fate of the father, and 3) the placement of the showcase ballad “Someone Else’s Story”, written for the original Broadway company, the only improvement on the original piece. The evolution of the show is thus:
1) London: Florence’s father is alluded to, and revealed to be dead after all
2) New York: Florence’s father is an actual character shown in flashback and as an elderly man, even having a lullaby written for him, but was actually revealed to be an imposter and dead after all. “Someone Else’s Story” is added for Florence in Act I.
3) US Tour: Florence’s father is an actual character shown in flashback and as an old man, but is alive for a happy ending at the airport after Anatoly leaves with the Russians.
4) Actors Benefit: The setting is now present day 2003 which means no cold war at all, no father character needed, and “Someone Else’s Story” now given to the Russian’s wife, Svetlana, in Act 2. Anatoly leaves Florence not because he’s going home for any chance to reunite her with her father, or duty to his wife, but because , “I love you, but I love chess more than anything”, and he goes off to just play. Lesson: present day doesn’t work.
5) Royal Albert Hall: pretty much the same, but the father character is back, it’s an 80s period piece again, and the father is dead in the end. Svetlana still has the number.
6) Kennedy Center: The action shifts back 10 years and spans from the late 70s to the mid 80s encounter higher stakes grounded in historical Russian activity, with Act 1 set in the SALT treaty negotiations, and Act 2 set five years later (instead of next year’s match) during the Able Archer exercises.
7) New York Revival: The plot is amped up with super serious espionage and cold warfare, with historical emphasis placed on the actual SALT treaty and Able Archer exercises as plot points, not just references (implying that we escaped global annihilation due to results of the chess match), “Someone Else’s Story” is given back to Florence at the end of Act 2, and Florence’s father? TBA, to avoid spoilers. There is a massive shake-up of the score and drastically rewritten characters
As CHESS has always been know to have an atrocious book or six, let’s start with the weak points of the show. 90% of which are the book. Surprisingly Book 7 is not only no better than the previous tries, in many ways it’s the worst since the original New York attempt. CHESS is at its heart a story of two competitive grandmaster rivals at the top of their games (one American, Freddie Trumper; one Russian, Anatoly Sergievski), and Florence Vassy, the woman who comes between them, in a sweeping love triangle played out against the backdrop of the Cold War era of the 80s. Strong has taken a thin plot that only exists to thread a phenomenal song cycle together and brings the Cold War to the foreground, using actual historical events to make a John Grisham thriller out of it. One would think a more cohesive story would help, but his attempt is so heavy-handed it just makes the story downright silly. It’s one thing to have the personal lives of chess players effected by the political implications of Communism, but to pretend that a global nuclear catastrophe was narrowly avoided by the results of a chess match is preposterous.
The most egregious misstep in Strong’s pass at the story is the blatant disregard he has for the characters, unsuccessfully attempting to flesh them out. For instance, his handling of the Arbiter, a character who by the very definition of the role is supposed to be a neutral outside judge of the game, is now the narrator of the story. Not only that, he’s made him a stand-up comic with lame to pathetic material, judging the players personally throughout. (When he introduces Tveit’s American character, Freddie Trumper, he forces a punchline, “I know, but remember this show was written in 1984.” Cue the laugh track.) Also, by changing the timeline of the show from from one year in the mid 80s to the late 70s first act to mid 80s second, solely to align with real world global cold war events–total overkill–Strong has also made Freddie not just a spoiled, temperamental narcissist, but labeled him bipolar (a diagnosis which didn’t even exist until the DSM III in 1980, which makes it anachronistic for the first act), then making his medication an absurd plot point in international sabotage.
Strong has expanded the character of Svetlana, Anatoly’s wife back home at the mercy of the Communist regime who is not pleased with her husband’s international philandering–even having the composers add a new solo for her, the first since “Some Else’s Story” was added for New York in 1989. As Svetlana in former versions has been the one relative innocent in the lore–let’s say in chess lingo, the Russian Queen who is relegated to being a pawn–this should be a plus. Except Strong has rewritten the only sympathetic character in the story as a raging shrew. There is no one left to root for. All the players are now victim to their own faults. This is worst in what should be Svetlana’s highest moment, her stunning 11:00 duet with Florence, “I Know Him So Well”, in which the two ladies being led on by Anatoly lament their common feelings about loving and understanding his flaws too late. This number was conceived, and has been played in all previous versions, as the inner monologues of two women in two places with common thoughts and feelings. Strong has placed them in a confrontation, shouting the final chorus at each other, in effect taking the most beautiful, introspective song of the show and turning it into a catfight.
Strong has also tampered with musical structure of the show with mixed results. The show has always opened with some version of “The Story of Chess”, which tells the origin of the game that will set the tone of the show as a metaphor for the political game that the story unfolds against, as the characters’ actions dictate responses from the hypothetical Cold War going on in the background. But Strong has made a bold sweep by moving a later number, “Dangerous and Difficult Times” which opens with the line “It’s the US versus USSR”, making it painfully clear the international intrigue and war games are now the front line story and the characters now pawns who merely react to the real historical Cold War events laid out. To make it worse, Strong has cut “Story of Chess” but then uses just it’s above quoted opening line to be the finale, a soft wind down of events, and blackout. This could have been a nice touch if the song had ever happened before to establish the importance of this reprise at the end. As a one and out, it’s pointless with no reference to the story to be a correlation.
The biggest musical flub is moving the gorgeous ethereal number “Someone Else’s Story” from its original place in the first act as Florence questions her time wasted with a narcissistic man-child, or even it’s alternate place as Svetlana’s second act lament over the man she thought she married, to the finale of the show where Michele’s Florence sings it reflecting on her relationship with Anatoly that fell apart from political manipulation from both the CIA and KGB. One might think this could work, as Florence has an abundance of solos, and something needs to go to the second act, but in placing this at the very end, he has created a show that honestly has an unprecedented four 11:00 numbers before culminating with the soft “Story of Chess” finale. But “Someone Else’s’ Story”, literally one of the most perfect women’s solos, both in melody, structure, and emotions of the lyrics, is left anti-climatic here, mostly due to positioning it directly behind Christopher’s unexpectedly breathtaking delivery of “Endgame”, turning it from the musical wrap-up to the biggest showstopper of the insanely strong score. So now the show amps up/winds down the final stretch with Tveit’s “Pity the Child” into the powerhouse duet of “I Know Him So Well” into Nicholas’ slam dunk of “Endgame” into Michelle’s reflective “Someone Else’s Story”, which dynamically, as perfect as the song is, plays as a let down and cheats the singer and the song of their rightful acclaim. The song also doesn’t work lyrically, because it is about a woman who has left a man emotionally years ago (Freddie), but knows its now time to move on. Florence doesn’t leave Anatoly, he leaves her, for a variety of political reasons. So at this point in this reference, the gorgeous song makes no sense.
There are many similar flaws in staging and interpretation of Strong’s overzealous book. But the good news is none of this really matters. CHESS is and always has been at heart a concert of one of the most perfect scores ever in modern theatre. And when one approaches the musical from the angle of the music and the vocals alone, it is still a resounding success. I sat fully aware of the shows new faults, as well as its inherited faults. yet as long as the strong and capable cast were singing I got constant chills. The second act in particular is structured as a string of non-stop bangers from the opening “One Night in Bangkok” to the finale, with each character slaying solos that get progressively bigger and better as the show builds, climaxes, and resolves into its denouement. So, on to the better news and the most important factor: the music.
As established a multitude of times in my ruminations on the show, Benny and Bjӧrn (we’ve been on a first name basis since “Waterloo”) have produced a master score at the height of their time on the top of the international Billboard charts. (Side note: their breakout hit in the show, “One Night in Bangkok” has the distinction of being the last original cast album cover of a musical song to ever get radio play, topping out at #3.) And this score for this revival is by all means the best of the best of the greatest hits they’ve ever written for this piece, simply one banger after another for the entirety of the show, with new amped up arrangements to make them even better. They also expanded on the best sequence of the show, the second act set-piecce “The Deal (No Deal)”, where the action speeds through a series of strategic chess moves by each of the principal players until we end up in the championship match, utilizing all reprises of all the wondeful themes we’ve heard so far, and culminating in a stunning 7-part reprise of “Nobody’s Side”). I will maintain this is the most glorious score of any modern musical and the third jewel in the best rock opera trifecta following Andrew Lloyd Webber and Rice’s original masterpiece Jesus Christ Superstar, and The Who’s Pete Townshend’s iconic Tommy. [Yes, I know CHESS is technically not a rock opera due to the dialogue, but it should be.]
As Florence Vassy, the woman who comes between the rivals, Lea Michele (Funny Girl, Glee) is no Judy Kuhn or Elaine Paige, but she is nonetheless fantastic. Those who badmouth her performance can’t separate her from her TV (and PR nightmare) persona of Rachel Berry, but the truth is she’s become a significantly more accomplished singer and actress since she graduated her career at McKinley High. Even her hardcore critics have to admit she literally saved the self-sabotaged revival of Funny Girl when she replaced the actress they went so out of their way not to cast Michele with. She brings those big Streisand-wannabe pipes to this glorious score, which gives Florence (originally written for Mrs. Tim Rice, Paige) all the biggest numbers. And as far as acting, it’s basically a park and bark role for Florence, especially this version which removes the theatrics of the classic left-at-the-airport, whatever-am-I-to-do ending and replaces it with a softer, more reflective one. She is in her best vocal form ever and with Nicole Scherzinger unavailable, Michele is a great successor to pop-rock revival queen of the season.
I had the most concerns about Tony Winner Aaron Tveit (Moulin Rouge, Catch Me If You Can, Grease Live) as the unlikable bad boy of chess, Freddie Trumper. I worried about his range and his ability to shake his matinee idol amiable image. And while he does seem to be clearly fighting against type, he succeeds, He hits the high E at the end of “Pity the Child”, maybe not as clearly as some of his classically trained predecessors (particulary origin US performer Phillip Casnoff), but he has a blast with the second act signature song “One Night in Bangkok”—enhanced with an last minute modulation no other Freddie has had. Even saddled with the silly bipolar condition Strong actually uses as a plot point in several occasions, he delivers a solid support for the star trio and rises to deliver all the elements required of the showiest role of the three.
But for all the advance word of mouth and excitement and anticipation the big name leads were causing, it’s the quiet third point of this triangle who should get the bulk of the attention. Even I as a career-long Tveiter-Tot have to admit, as Russian Anatoly Sergievsky, Nicholas Christopher (Hamilton, Miss Saigon) is the highest rising star power of this show. Tall, strong, and leading man stunning, he has the booming tenor required to sell the most emotional numbers of the show—yes not just the expected first act finale “Anthem”, Nicholas also single-handedly turns the finale “Endgame” into his own personal 11:00 number in a show that denies him one. In all its incarnations, I have never seen the final showdown be so vocally and gut-wrenchingly thrilling. Suffice it to say that Christopher is the revelation of this Broadway season.
The supporting cast is solid and serviceable. Bryce Pinkham (A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder) has the most expanded role now as not only the Arbiter, but also the Narrator of the piece. Not that it needed one, and the character who is supposed to be by definition the most neutral character in the show, now cracks bad jokes at the expense of the players, many in poor taste about Tveit’s character’s mental illness. But he has a strong singing voice and presence to rise to his new requirements and is very engaging with the audience, even if he should not be the one guiding us on this journey.
As Russian KGB kingpin Alexander Molokov, Bradley Dean is an intimidating presence with a strong baritone bass. His character as written is barely a cartoon version of Moose & Squirrel’s Boris Badenov, but Dean fleshes it out as best he can. He delivers his big number “The Soviet Machine” a comrade drinking song that works on several levels about Russian domination, on the global profile as well as the chess board, with broad villainy.
Hannah Cruz (Suffs) as Svetlana, Anatoly’s wife back home in Russia, a glorified cameo with some of the best music of the show, has a strong enough singing voice, and holds her own with Michele in their powerhouse duet “I Know Him So Well”, the most gorgeous song of the score and arguably the best women’s duet ever written. Having given the volleyball of “Someone Else’s Story” back to Florence, Ulvaeus, Andersson, and Rice have added a new song to the score for her, “He Is a Man, He Is a Child”. This alone makes her a more aggressive and intense Svetlana, who is usually the most sympathetic character of the show. But Cruz brings a harshness to the role that makes her more like a Real Housewife of Moscow than the abandoned woman with children to raise on her own at the KGB’s mercy. With this persona, she is most at home with her part in the second act set piece “The Deal (No Deal)”, where she perfecty lays into her philandering husband with his own words, chiding him, “Now you’re where you want to be and who you want to be and doing what you always said you would and yet you really haven’t won at all,” with a greater intensity than most of her predecessors. I want to root for Svetlana, but this one is such a shrew that it’s easy to understand why Anatoly has strayed. Director Michael Mayer also does her no favors by staging the gorgeous “I Know Him So Well”, conceived as Florence and Svetlana singing inner monologues about the man in between them in their own spaces on a common stage as a confrontation, again making Cruz come across harsher than she should.
Sean Allen Krill (Jagged Little Pill) as Walter de Courcey, the American CIA Agent, is the only cast member that benefits from Strong’s pretentious rewrites. Walter has always been “ the seventh character”, a requisite American agent needed to fill out a plot device that no one ever bothered to write more than was necessary for. Pinkham even describes his personality “even if he’s the only character without a song”. Krill takes advantage of some of the comic one-liners they have added for him and delivers them with dry wit precision, fleshing him out as more of a complete character instead of the plot cipher he was.
On the physical/technical end, director Michael Mayer wisely scales it all back and treats the show as the concert rock opera it should be. Mayer’s direction is lowkey and unintrusive. He’s sticking to his rock concert motif, and minus the silly points where he has a depressed Freddie on the floor in the fetal position too many times, and his role in the horrible decision in the staging of “I Know Him So Well”. He also neglects to stage the parallels of the various characters in the brilliant “The Deal (No Deal)”, where all the players use their strategy on each other in a massively staged chess game employing all their previous themes and anthems as they attack and counter-attack. Of course, Strong also eliminated the clear chess piece references so the blame could go in either or directions. On the flip side, he blocks the first chess match as a boring instrumental with the players just iterating their specific moves in succession (“Pawn to Knight 4”, etc.) and no attempt to flesh out the action using his ensemble as human pieces, or even a projection of the match, to give visual energy to the sequence.
Set Designer David Rockwell favors basic scaffolding and an onstage orchestra to provide a few levels for visuals. His cleverest touch is on the side legs of the set, floor to ceiling panels of chess board with each block featuring classic chess pieces interspersed with the occasional nuclear missile, cleverly styled taking cues from the shapes of harmless chess pieces. The emphasis is placed on Peter Nigrini’s background videos which give us everything from hinted at US/USSR flags for gentle mood to an almost laughable sequence of nuclear weapons descending on the maps as the final match approaches its climax with. the global annihilation it suggests we barely avoided. Nigrini’s best effort is how the stage comes alive with neon lights and technicolor for the gaudy, bawdy delight of “One Night in Bangkok” at the top of the second act.
Kevin Adams Light Design also smartly is just one rock concert effect after another, providing all the mood in a variety of styles from columns of color to deep washes of red and blue bisecting the stage into rival territories. But Adams’ lights are the techincal highlight of the show that provide the necessary rock concert feel the music deserves.
Tom Broecker’s Costume Designs are uninspired to nonexistent. The leads in constant variations of black and white with no real purpose to make any particular statements on the character, and the Arbiter and ensemble in gray suits. Serviceable but nothing worthy of a Broadway staging. And the one could-be salvaging moment of the plot, depicting the debaucher of the titular city in “One Night in Bangkok” ,where the company strip down to theis skivies for the number, there’s minimal skin. Muscular chorus men hired obviously for their muscular frames wear wifebeater undershirts and suspenders, and the ladies’ garments are closer to granny panties than Victoria’s Secret enticing apparel. Total fail for a number about sleaze that is straight out of 1980s Solid Gold.
The other technical star of the show is Sound Designer John Shivers flawless blend of music and vocals for high energy rock music with a perfect balance of both sides of the master score in its best incarnation ever.
Choreographer Lorin Loaarro is inconsistent in her dance, which should have a greater emphasis in the staging of a rock concert. Latarro fares better with the “Dangerous and Difficult Times” opening and “The Arbiter’s Song” but falls flat on what by all means should be the MTV/Solid Gold moment of the show, “One Night in Bangkok”. What should be a thrilling adventure of high 80s decadence and sleaze is far too tame. Even when the company slips out of their gray business suits to their undergarments, save for one inspired moment where the ensemble cleverly dress Tveit with a clever way to get him into his pants mid-number, the number is a disappointing lost opportunity. Latarro also backs off the obvious gay references in the song which takes place in a sin city know for its cultural history of “ladyboys” and staged the two lines “I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine” and “the queens we use would not excite you” in innocuous, ambiguous, and just plain bland and uninspired pairings with female dancers when there are a slew of hot men in the number to better utilize for the point. The current Miss Saigon 25th Anniversary Revival that played a few years ago was far more progressive in fleshing out the seedier sides and gender fluidity of the city’s local sex scene. Rice has provided delicious, descriptive lyrics to work with. Latarro fumbles them all.
I know this review is going to be polarizing, much like my only other foray into Broadway shows, the much needed rebuttal to the critical slamming of The Cher Show by sources that didn’t understand her or the show. Again here, I’m fighting a lot of preconceived negativity from its detractors. Negativity against the show and its previous unsuccessful productions, against Michele and her onscreen persona and offscreen antics, and against Tveit and his Ivory boy image. But as I said, in the end this show has never been about anything except Andersson, Ulvaeus, and Rice’s absolutely glorious score, and as a wonderfully executed celebration of that, I have nothing but raves for the piece. My suggestions is please stop trying to fix what isn’t broken, a theory supported strongly by the musical’s co-creator himself, Tim Rice. A last minute aside is this notice from Rice himself that shows he’s just basically given up on the piece and wishes he never changed anything, which now appears in every amateur script of the show purchased from Concord Theatricals:
As for this current rivival, I agree with him wholeheartedly. None of the changes were necessary, or even helped the piece. The elements that worked best have been there from the beginning. Open with a queen’s gambit of stacking the best Florence possible in a power position. Pin a pair of strong and charismatic kings as Freddie and Anatoly. Attack Andersson and Ulvaeus’ sumptuous score with all the fervor and diligence it demands, and…check mate. It’s a win for everyone.
CHESS runs, at this point, until September 13, 2026, at the Imperial Theatre, 249 W. 45th Street, New York. Lea MIchele’s final performance is scheduled to be June 21, 2026, when pop singer Jojo Lavesque will take over the role of Florence. Tickets are available at the box office or here, but don’t pay full price (for this or anything in New York). Enter the Ticketmaster lottery day before or inquire about rush tickets at box office day of, either for a more reasonably priced for $49