After Chess, Lea Michele Wants to Do Cabaret and Fantine in Les Miz

Lea Michele has come home.

30 years after making her Broadway debut as Young Cosette and Eponine in Les Misérables, the New Jersey native has returned to the Imperial Theatre, stepping into the undeniably adult heels of Florence Vassy in the hit revival of Chess through June 21.

“Florence is really the first woman that I've ever played,” Michele states, cocking her head to the side in thought as she looks over the spread of shows that have lit up her career over the last three decades. “Fanny Brice starts out younger, and of course, we see her throughout the course of her life, but I was still starting at such a youthful place. Everyone else was a little girl, or a teenager.” She shakes her head, smiling. “It’s my first time playing a woman, and that is so thrilling.”

The transition from child star to teen idol to fully actualized adult is deeply difficult. Many young performers fail to navigate the shifts, leaving the profession as a result. After her early career triumph in Spring Awakening led to a pressurized form of anxiety, Michele spent more than a decade away from New York, playing a series of on-screen teens and early 20-somethings (including Glee’s Rachel Berry) in Los Angeles. It was the COVID-19 pandemic that convinced Michele that she was ready to return to New York as an adult.

“My husband and I were planning on living in California for the rest of our lives. But when it was the pandemic and we were separated from our families, I felt so far from everyone that I loved.” Michele swallows hard, eyes far off in memory. “I had just given birth, and I turned to my husband and I said, ‘I want to go home.’”

In what felt like the blink of an eye, her family uprooted, returning to the East Coast. With her focus firmly on motherhood, the old adage that love finds us when we least expect it took hold: Spring Awakening director Michael Mayer asked Michele if she would lead his Funny Girl revival.

The 2022 Broadway revival of Funny Girl was the culmination of many, many years of false starts for Michele and the Jule Styne musical. Her character on Glee, Rachel Berry, was heavily associated with the piece and its original star Barbra Streisand. Her rendition of "Don't Rain On My Parade" cracked the Billboard Hot 100 when it was released by the show, she covered just about every song from the musical over the shows six seasons, and Glee even went so far as to write a Broadway revival of the musical into the plot for Rachel in the show's final seasons. Rumors swirled for years that a real-life revival starring Michele was in the works, but for an array of reasons, it never came to fruition.

Then COVID came, the industry was upended, and Michele found herself on the outside of an experience she had been dreaming of for decades.

When the revival was announced starring Beanie Feldstein in the titular role, rather than Michele, it seemed her Fanny Brice dreams had gone from deferred to dead-on-arrival. Newly a mother to her firstborn son, Ever Leo, Michele made peace with the decision, wishing Feldstein well as she focused on her family, rather than her career. But you know what they say about best laid plans....

With very little warning, Feldstein exited the production after four months in the role. Feldstein's understudy, Julie Benko, was propelled to theatre fame as she stepped in to keep the show together while the production scrambled for a new star. The phone rang, and Michele had a decision to make: stick to her quieter family life and the screen career she had adjusted to over the intervening decade? Or return to the hustle and bustle of Broadway, and all of the promise it had once held for her? 

“I didn't even know if I could physically ever do theatre again,” Michele admits, her eyes wistful. “This was my greatest dream come true. I’d wanted to play Fanny Brice for as far back as I could remember. I remember what I was eating, what I was wearing, where I was sitting, the first time I saw that film. And so, I said yes. I jumped out of the plane, and was living my dream, every single night. It was so incredibly hard, but it was also…”

Michele takes a deep breath before plowing forward, focused with laser intent. “When I feel like I can't do something, I say, ‘Okay well, I've had two children, and I played Fanny Brice. So I can do it. I can do anything.”

Her longtime dream achieved, Michele is now deeply embracing the opportunity Chess has given her to build an adult artistic identity in the community that defined so much of her childhood. 

"I found a photo of me in 1995 at the Imperial Theatre from when I was in Les Miz when I was eight years old, and they have all the Playbills of the shows that had been in the theatre before on the wall, and right behind me was the Playbill for Chess. The last time I felt this alive and free and fearless and present doing a show was 30 years ago, when I was eight years old on the same stage ... I'm eight years old, having the time of my life, all over again."

What’s next after she departs Chess? Well, she studied the other Playbills in that childhood photograph for answers: "I did Fiddler, I did Chess... Cabaret?" Michele looks around conspiratorially before looking directly into the camera. “Les Miz always seems to kind of pop back up in my life. I have to play Fantine, now. We have to make that happen. Madison Square Garden?"

To learn more about the theatrical experiences that shaped Michele, including Audra McDonald teaching her how to sing, opening her college acceptance letter backstage with Alfred Molina, and her foundational (and sweaty) friendship with Jonathan Groff, check out her full My Life in the Theatre episode above.