Chess

Three of musical theater's brightest stars—Lea Michele, Aaron Tveit and Nicholas Christopher—hit the boards (and the board) in this 1980s musical about romantic heat in the Cold War, as manifested at international chess tournaments. Previous productions of the show, including its short-lived Broadway debut in 1988, have struggled to tell coherent stories, but the score by Tim Rice and ABBA's Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus has proved lastingly popular (and yielded, in "One Night in Bangkok," the last song written for the stage to become a hit on the U.S. pop charts). Danny Strong's new book hopes to succeed where previous ones have failed; Michael Mayer directs and Lorin Latarro choreographs.