From child actor to star: Lea Michele's return to Broadway's Imperial Theatre

NEW YORK (AP) — Lea Michele was just a kid actor backstage at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway when she first heard a song from the musical “Chess” on a stereo. Some three decades later, she finds herself singing that same tune in the same theater.

The “Glee” and Broadway veteran, who got her professional start in “Les Misérables” at age 8, has returned, now a mother and a bankable star, to her old stomping grounds, which coincidentally is the very theater where “Chess” made its debut in 1988.

“The Imperial Theatre really has a soul. Every show that’s ever been in it is absorbed in the walls. It’s a little eerie, but very powerful. Other theaters can feel a little sterile, but this does not feel that way,” she says.

She remembers exactly where she sat the first time she saw “Les Misérables” — orchestra left, six rows in — hearing Paige O’Hara as Fantine sing “I Dreamed a Dream” in the musical that she would soon join, playing Young Cosette and Young Eponine.

“I was in the show and I told my parents, I said ‘I love this. I want to do this for the rest of my life.’ And it’s really very emotional to be here 30 years later still working, thank God, back at this theater,” she says. The icing on the cake? An electrician on her return simply said: “Welcome home.”

What's ‘Chess’ about?'

“Chess,” which opens Nov. 16 and is set primarily in Bangkok and Budapest during the Cold War, tells the fictional story about two chess grandmasters — an American played by Aaron Tveit and a Soviet, portrayed by Nicholas Christopher — facing off to win for their respective nations, a task complicated by the appearance of a woman they both love, played by Michele.

“This is the hardest character in a lot of ways that I’ve ever played,” Michele says. “She’s a woman. She’s strong. I don’t have comedy to lean on as a crutch or as a kind of like a protective cloak.”

The show reunites Michele with Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer, who directed her both in her breakout “ Spring Awakening ” in 2006 and also in “Funny Girl” in 2022.

Mayer also has great memories of the Imperial Theatre. It was the place where he saw his first Broadway show — “Pippin” in 1976 with Ben Vereen. He was in the back row of the mezzanine, eight seats in from the right aisle. “I sat there and everything came back,” he says.

The show, with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA, originated as a concept album in 1984 and includes the goosebump-raising “Anthem,” the pop-pulsing “One Night in Bangkok”— which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 — and the lilting “I Know Him So Well.”

The musical, first staged in London in 1986 and heavily revised for a Broadway production in 1988, has a cult fan base, but the Broadway production was a flop, lasting less than 90 performances. Attempts have been made to resuscitate it over the years with concerts and new stagings. A new story has been written for the latest iteration by screenwriter Danny Strong.

Michele is aware of the show's somewhat spotty legacy and swirling questions about its workability. She compares the noise to when she was launching “Spring Awakening” and people would wonder about how 1890 Germany with rock music and teenage sex would work.

“I think we’re just really excited for people to see what we’ve been able to do. We’re not ignoring the history of our show, but we just know what we have and I think that it will really all make a lot of sense once everyone gets to see it.”

Michele and Mayer

The relationship between Michele and Mayer has evolved and deepened over the 25 or so years they've known each other. He says he's watched her grow up and no longer feels like a father figure. Now they're peers.

“I feel like we’re not just colleagues, but we’re dear friends. I would almost say we’re family at this point,” he says. “I met her when she was 14 years old. We’ve been in each other’s lives for many, many years now. And being able to work together and have that sort of shorthand has been amazing.”

To prove it, he mentions that he had an idea the night before about a big change he wanted to make. “Lea woke up at 3 o’clock this morning with an idea,” he says. “We blurted it out to each other this morning at the start of rehearsal and it’s the same idea.”

Michele's mind drifts back to those days when she was a child at the Imperial Theatre. The other girls in her dressing room played songs from Broadway shows like “Miss Saigon” and “Bye Bye Birdie” — including one from “Chess” called “Heaven Help My Heart.” Now it's one of her songs.