Aaron Tveit on Reviving CHESS & Why ABBA’s Music Remains “Timeless”

Aaron Tveit knows how to force an opponent into a checkmate. After all, the Tony Award winner learned the skill and strategy for the game as a child.

“I played chess a lot with my brother and my dad and my grandmother when I was a kid,” he tells Ticketmaster just two days before Thanksgiving.

Knowing what he refers to as “the fundamentals and more” about the game have come in awfully handy now that he’s starring in the Broadway revival of CHESS, the fiercely loved cult musical by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice.

Set during the reawakened tensions of the Cold War at the tail end of the 1970s, the musical unfurls the complex story of two chess grandmasters — one American, one Russian — facing off in a high-stakes tournament and the woman caught between them.

It feels like something of an understatement to call the musical’s subject matter “timely,” even intensely so, when it premiered on Broadway in 1988. At the time, communism had reigned in the Soviet Union for almost a century, the Berlin Wall still cast its long shadow over Germany and perestroika was on its way to dismantling the Eastern Bloc under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev.

However, Tveit claims that while audiences are now decades removed from the effects of the Reagan Doctrine, the themes of CHESS still remain viscerally potent in the modern age.

“So many people know a lot about that time,” he says. “But because there’s distance, we can really look at it and say, ‘Oh, these are similarities to today, these are things that are maybe even worse off today.’ It allows us to really hold the mirror up and have people have a thought about what’s happening in our world today.”

In the updated production, now playing at the Imperial Theatre, Tveit stars as Freddie Trumper, the American grandmaster, opposite Nicholas Christopher as his Russian counterpart Anatoly Sergievsky and Lea Michele as Florence Vassy.

The revival also features showstopping songs like “Someone Else’s Story,” “One Night in Bangkok” and “Where I Want to Be” as well as a brand-new book by Danny Strong (amid a career littered with accolades and acclaim for his writing for TV and film; yes, that’s Doyle McMaster of Gilmore Girls fame).

Below, Tveit opens up exclusively to Ticketmaster about giving CHESS its long-awaited rebirth and what the geopolitical machinations of the show have to teach audiences about the value of human life. Plus, the Broadway heartthrob reflects on the CHESS number that connects him to the late Gavin Creel, reveals his favorite ABBA song and more.

Congrats on opening the show! How’s it going so far?

Thank you very much. Yes, very, very happy to be on this side of opening. [It’s going] great! Really great. Previews were awesome as well, but it’s just always a lot of work when we’re rehearsing during the day and [doing] shows at night. So always excited to be open and now we can settle into our schedule and do this great show eight times a week. Yeah, the first week went awesome. So we’re super excited.

CHESS obviously holds a really interesting and sort of unique place in Broadway history. What appealed to you about getting the chance to revive it?

Well, it’s a real beloved show, you know? I mean, this score — especially [among] people that know Broadway and are Broadway fans — it’s one of these shows that I’ve heard so many people say, “Oh my god, I love that score, it’s my favorite show.” But a lot of those people have never seen a production of it. Or maybe they’ve seen a regional production, but it’s not had a full-scale production in New York since the late ‘80s and I think that as the lore goes, that one was a short run.

So it’s pretty amazing to finally be a part of this show getting its revival on Broadway and to be, now, a small part of its history. And I was one of those people that loved the score. I got thrown the score when I was in college as I was learning a lot of theater albums, and I was just blown away by the music. I was like, “What is this? This is so amazing!” So it’s really remarkable to kind of step back, I can’t believe that I’m getting to be a part of the revival of this show that so many people love.

You play Freddie Trumper, the American grandmaster. How would you describe the character?

Well, Freddie is a very brash, narcissistic, brilliant chess player who definitely loves his fame. But he also is struggling with some mental health demons and, from what we learn in the show, he had a bit of a traumatic childhood and upbringing, and didn’t have the support system in place to deal with becoming really famous at about 11 years old. So we’re kind of now seeing the fallout of all of that in his life.

He’s a complicated character. But what’s nice about the show is he gets to go on a real journey and, I think, gets to change. I’m always looking for characters who get to do that, so… he might start out as not the best guy, and hopefully he gets a little bit better as the show goes on.

How much did you know about the actual game of chess before starting rehearsals? Did you have to learn the fundamentals in order to play a grandmaster?

I played a lot of chess when I was much younger. I’ve not played for many years, but when I was a kid, I had one grandmother who taught me to play all kinds of card games and board games, including chess. She’s since passed away, but she taught me how to play poker and I play a lot of poker now. So I’ve not played chess for many years, but I played chess a lot with my brother and my dad and my grandmother when I was a kid. I’m definitely not great at chess, but I at least knew…probably the fundamentals and more. So it’s been a lot of fun to revisit that through this process.

I have some friends who are very, very good, and so they have really enjoyed razzing me and beating me terribly online playing on Chess.com. But at the same time, it’s been so much fun because I’ve gotten to talk to them a lot about some higher level chess stuff. In our show, you don’t necessarily need to know how to play chess. Obviously, it’s in the script and everything, but I just think anytime there’s something else you can learn, or learn more about, as an actor, that’s what’s so fun about our job. We get to encounter these things that we wouldn’t in our normal life and I’m just very curious about that. I think it adds another level and depth to what you’re doing if you kind of halfway know what you’re talking about.

The plot of CHESS was obviously incredibly timely when it originally premiered towards the end of the Cold War, but we’ve now fast-forwarded three and a half decades later for the revival. How do you think the geopolitical element of the show resonates in 2025?

That’s another reason that I was so keen to be a part of the production. Because good theater and good art, while at all times can be entertaining, also can do the sneaky thing and hold a bit of a mirror up to society. And when it first debuted, they were kind of still amidst this geopolitical structure [of] the Cold War, and the Berlin Wall hadn’t come down, the Soviet Union hadn’t fallen apart yet. And I think it’s hard, almost, to look at things without any time and distance.

But we now have time and distance and perspective to look back at that time. So many people know a lot about that time or they’re going to learn more about it from the show. But because there’s distance, we can really look at it and say, “Oh, these are similarities to today, these are things that are maybe even worse off today.” It allows us to really hold the mirror up and have people have a thought about what’s happening in our world today.

I’m curious for your thoughts on what the show has to say about propaganda and political division.

I mean, we tell it through a lens, obviously, of these chess players. But I think what’s fascinating is, basically, these people — this KGB operative and this CIA operative — co-opt this chess match, right? To use it for their own political gain for each country. But what happens is that individual civilians and people’s lives are kind of the fallout of that. And it’s a very interesting thing when we think about — and this is a grand statement, but — these big countries, no pun intended, moving these chess pieces around. They don’t think about the individual lives that are at stake and that are affected by this.

We think of all these issues as these big, global issues, but at the heart of it, there’s a very human element that ends up being the people that suffer the most, right? And that’s an interesting thing that I’ve taken away from this story is that some people’s lives are destroyed by the things that are happening on stage. And I think that’s the thing that sometimes gets lost in our news coverage when, you know, every side is just talking about whatever their agenda is, we lose the human aspect at the center of it.

You’re also starring in the revival with Lea Michele and Nicholas Christopher. What have you learned from the two of them, with this sort of triangular dynamic that the three of you are playing?

It’s just been amazing. Nick and I got to do Sweeney Todd together last year, and I was a huge fan of his. But I jumped into that process, I didn’t get to be a part of the rehearsal process. So getting to be a part of the rehearsal process with him, I’ve gotten to see how he works and how committed he is to his part and his dedication. He’s really just so fantastic in this part and in everything I’ve seen him in. I’m just thrilled that people are getting to see him in this.

And Lea as well! I’ve known Lea for a long time, we’ve never worked together. And I’ve just been really, really impressed by her work ethic. All three of us got to sit down with Michael [Mayer], the director, and Danny [Strong], the writer, this summer and talk a lot about the script. They listened to our ideas for changes, and I was really, really so impressed and kind of blown away by what [Christopher and Michele] brought in terms of how they wanted these characters to be portrayed and the changes that they brought to the show. So it’s really been so wonderful working with them. You know, with Lea it was a long time coming and with Nick, we finally got a real crack at a rehearsal process. I just love being on stage with both of them.

There’s another character in the show, The Arbiter, whose role has changed pretty significantly in the revival. How has his revision into a sort of narrator figure changed the form of the story?

It’s a lot about what we were just talking about. Bryce Pinkham, who plays The Arbiter, I’ve been a huge fan of his for many years and it’s been a thrill to watch him up close. His narration really sets up the time and place, and sets up a lot of the background of these things we’re talking about dealing with the Cold War. He even says at the top of the show, “It’s 1979. A lot of the stuff you’re about to see is gonna be fantastic, but a lot of it actually happened,” right?

So he sets off right from the beginning that yes, you’re gonna see this story, this drama, this fictional tale. But at the same time, it’s almost like historical fiction, if you’ve ever read those kinds of novels — which I think are fascinating. He sets everyone up and does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of leading the audience through the evening, to be able to kind of turn directly to them and say, “OK, here’s some context to this moment, this is what was actually going on at this time.” While we’re telling this fictional story, he’s giving a little bit of the nonfiction background.

CHESS was famously the first project Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus wrote together after ABBA’s final performance in 1982. What do you think makes their music so masterful and timeless?

Yeah, it’s really an interesting combination. Because the younger generation now, in the last few years, have discovered and rediscovered ABBA, and all these ABBA songs have become, like, anthems. Like, you hear them all summer and in all these places and there’s something really timeless about that pop music.

So when you take that kind of pop music, but you’re putting it into a narrative with lyrics by Tim Rice — who is, you know, arguably one of the greatest musical theater lyricists of all time; we’re talking Lion King, Jesus Christ Superstar, Aida — I think the combination of his theatricality and their moving pop music is just a really unique thing for a show. And I think that’s why the music has resonated with people for so long. All the emotional storytelling in CHESS is done in the music, which, again, makes sense when you’re thinking about ABBA pop songs, right? Think about a song like “The Winner Takes It All.” It just, like, makes everyone cry or everyone get up and dance. Their music moves people, so to put that into a theatrical narrative is pretty special.

And in our show, all three main characters, at one point, get to turn to the audience and basically sing a song almost direct-address, where they’re sharing what’s happened to them and what they’re feeling that other characters don’t know. So we get to share it directly with the audience, much like a Shakespeare soliloquy. So to be able to do that with this amazing pop music, emotional storytelling, it’s what you hope to have in musical theater. And some shows get it really right, but I think the combination of Benny and Björn with Tim Rice’s lyrics is just a really unique thing that hits on all of those levels.

It feels like kismet that CHESS and Mamma Mia! are both back on Broadway at the same time. Do you have a favorite ABBA song?

[Laughs] That’s really true, yeah. “The Winner Takes It All” is my absolute favorite ABBA song. I’ve sang it myself, it’s made its way into some of my own concert sets recently. I basically sing it at the end of the evening. Kind of what I just said to you, I’m like, “I’ve learned this about myself: I like songs that make me cry. This song makes me cry,” and then I sing the song.

Back in May, you also performed a song from CHESS, “I Know Him So Well,” for MCC Theater’s MISCAST25 as a tribute to your friend Gavin Creel. Could you talk about what that performance meant to you and why you chose that particular song?

Well, MCC came to me — I’ve done MISCAST a number of times, as Gavin had — and they basically said that they wanted to have a moment to acknowledge Gavin’s contribution to MISCAST and to the MCC, and just to the theater world and the world in general. And I was so blown away and honored that they asked me to do that.

Gavin and I had done two performances together. We did a RENT performance together [“Take Me or Leave Me” in 2016] and then during the pandemic in 2021, Gavin and I were both working on an episode of television together [FX’s American Horror Stories] and living in the same housing complex in L.A. And we, at the time, couldn’t go anywhere, right? But we were on the same [COVID] testing schedule and all those things, so we could hang out. We spent a lot of time together. They were doing a virtual MISCAST that year. And so we did a song from Jekyll and Hyde [“In His Eyes”], but “I Know Him So Well” was almost the song we did for that virtual MISCAST.

And then we always had a plan to kind of round out, you know, as everything is in threes…We always had planned to do “I Know Him So Well” as our next duet for MISCAST, and essentially, sadly, you know, we didn’t get to do that. So it was a nod to Gavin. He was definitely in the room with us — as he’s on every stage with everyone. But then it just so happens that at the time, I knew I was doing CHESS. No one else did. And now looking back, it looks like it was, like, some thing, but it was actually totally separate from this CHESS production.

I used to see him around the Upper West Side all the time, and he was one of the few people where, because I had idolized him so much growing up, I couldn’t ever bring myself to introduce myself or even, like, form words around him because I was genuinely so starstruck.

You’re telling me! When I was in college and listening to theater — he’s seven or eight years older than me — I only wanted to ever be Gavin Creel. And so the fact that I became friends with him is just… I thought that even when I was around him, still. He was a very, very special person.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t ask: As an original cast member on Schmigadoon, how do you feel about it getting a second life on Broadway after its absolutely unjust and premature cancellation?

[Laughs] I think Schmigadoon is just, like, one of the all-time great, heartwarming, lose-yourself-in-the-theater, fun stories ever. Especially that first season is a perfect stage musical, so I’m so excited to see them and to go and cheer them on. A very good friend of mine is playing Danny Bailey. I’m just so psyched for all of them.

Since it’s the holiday season and Thanksgiving is just a couple of days away, what are you most thankful for about this experience with CHESS?

I’m very thankful to be working in a Broadway show. As the years go on, you realize how few and far between they are. And I know that might sound silly talking to me, but they really are. You never know when the next one’s gonna be. So to be in something that finds an audience, that people are loving to see, that you love going to work every day — all of those things don’t always come together at one time. And when they do, it’s just really special. I’m just very, very grateful to have that in my life right now.