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NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Lea Michele<\/a> was just a kid actor backstage at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway when she first heard a song from the musical \u201cChess\u201d on a stereo. Some three decades later, she finds herself singing that same tune in the same theater.<\/p>\n The \u201cGlee\u201d<\/a> and Broadway veteran, who got her professional start in \u201cLes Mis\u00e9rables\u201d<\/a> at age 8, has returned, now a mother and a bankable star, to her old stomping grounds, which coincidentally is the very theater where \u201cChess\u201d made its debut in 1988.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Imperial Theatre really has a soul. Every show that\u2019s ever been in it is absorbed in the walls. It\u2019s a little eerie, but very powerful. Other theaters can feel a little sterile, but this does not feel that way,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n She remembers exactly where she sat the first time she saw \u201cLes Mis\u00e9rables\u201d \u2014 orchestra left, six rows in \u2014 hearing Paige O\u2019Hara as Fantine sing \u201cI Dreamed a Dream\u201d in the musical that she would soon join, playing Young Cosette and Young Eponine.<\/p>\n \u201cI was in the show and I told my parents, I said \u2018I love this. I want to do this for the rest of my life.\u2019 And it\u2019s really very emotional to be here 30 years later still working, thank God, back at this theater,\u201d she says. The icing on the cake? An electrician on her return simply said: \u201cWelcome home.\u201d<\/p>\n What’s \u2018Chess\u2019 about?’<\/p>\n \u201cChess,\u201d which opens Nov. 16 and is set primarily in Bangkok and Budapest during the Cold War,<\/a> tells the fictional story about two chess grandmasters \u2014 an American played by Aaron Tveit and a Soviet, portrayed by Nicholas Christopher \u2014 facing off to win for their respective nations, a task complicated by the appearance of a woman they both love, played by Michele.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the hardest character in a lot of ways that I\u2019ve ever played,\u201d Michele says. \u201cShe\u2019s a woman. She\u2019s strong. I don\u2019t have comedy to lean on as a crutch or as a kind of like a protective cloak.\u201d<\/p>\n The show reunites Michele with Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer, who directed her both in her breakout \u201c Spring Awakening<\/a> \u201d in 2006 and also in \u201cFunny Girl\u201d<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n Mayer also has great memories of the Imperial Theatre. It was the place where he saw his first Broadway show \u2014 \u201cPippin\u201d in 1976 with Ben Vereen. He was in the back row of the mezzanine, eight seats in from the right aisle. \u201cI sat there and everything came back,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The show, with lyrics by Tim Rice<\/a> and music by Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA,<\/a> originated as a concept album in 1984 and includes the goosebump-raising \u201cAnthem,\u201d the pop-pulsing \u201cOne Night in Bangkok\u201d\u2014 which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 \u2014 and the lilting \u201cI Know Him So Well.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n