We’ve got singing queens and knights and rooks.
Walter Tevis’ novel “The Queen’s Gambit,” which was recently adapted into a wildly successful Netflix miniseries, is headed to the stage as a musical, Level Forward, a female-led production company co-founded by Disney heir Abigail Disney, announced Monday.
The company provided few details on the show, including a creative team, beyond the story we already know: chess prodigy Beth Harmon grows up from a traumatic childhood to flourish in a male-dominated competition against all odds.
“It is a privilege for Level Forward to lead the charge of bringing ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ to the stage through the beloved and enduring craft of musical theater,” Level Forward CEO Adrienne Becker and producer Julia Dunetz said in a statement.
“Told through a brave and fresh point of view, audiences are already sharing in the friendship and fortitude of the story’s inspiring women who energize and sustain Beth Harmon’s journey and ultimate triumph. The story is a siren call amidst our contemporary struggles for gender and racial equity, and we’re looking forward to moving the project forward.”
The Netflix series, starring Anya Taylor-Joy as Beth, has been racking up awards, including two Golden Globes and two Critics’ Choice Awards.
Level Forward co-produced four Broadway shows during the 2019 season: “Jagged Little Pill,” “What the Constitution Means to Me,” “Slave Play” and the revival of “Oklahoma!”
ABBA’s Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus previously collaborated with lyricist Tim Rice to write “Chess,” a musical about a fictional tournament between an American and a Soviet grandmaster, but the show lasted just two months on Broadway in 1988.
