Lea Michele has kept a few very special mementos backstage with her while while starring in the hit Broadway revival of the 1986 musical “Chess.”
On the March 22 episode of Sunday Sitdown, the former “Glee” star took TODAY’s Willie Geist on a tour of the musical’s home, the Imperial Theatre, the same venue where Michele made her Broadway debut as an 8-year-old actor in the original Broadway run of “Les Misérables.”
“I found a picture of me from 1995 when I was in ‘Les Mis,’ and it was me and right behind me was a ‘Chess’ playbill,” Michele told Willie. “And then the first time I walked into this theater with ‘Chess,’ I looked right here, and here is where I took that picture.”
The 39-year-old entertainer, who dazzled audiences after taking over the lead role in the 2022 revival of “Funny Girl,” has kept the throwback snapshot of her in “Les Misérables” in her dressing room since “Chess” debuted in November 2025.
“I remember saying to my parents after my first performance (in ‘Les Mis’), ‘I want to do this for the rest of my life. Don’t ever tell me to stop. Don’t ever let me stop,’” she said.
The photo serves as a reminder to Michele, who grew up in the Bronx and New Jersey the daughter of a nurse and a deli owner, of how she made her wildest dreams come true.
“I look at this picture every day before I go out there, and I’m like, I think she would be so happy, and she would be so grateful that I listened to her when she said don’t ever let me stop doing this,” she said.
Also in Michele’s dressing room: drawings her own little ones, son Ever, 5, and daughter Emery, 1, made for her.
“I brought my children here the other day. My son he’s a little, like second show, you know? He was around for ‘Funny Girl,'” she told Willie. “And my daughter was just running around here with this confidence that I was like, ‘OK, I see you.'”
“But I looked at my mom, and my mom was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m here with your children and I used to walk you through that door,'” she said.
“You know, my son is gonna be 6, so it’s only two years younger than I was. So it’s a real incredible moment for my family,” she added.
In “Chess,” Michele plays Florence Vassy, a brilliant Cold War-era chess strategist who becomes entangled in a love triangle with an American chess master and his Russian rival, played, respectively, by Aaron Tveit and Nicholas Christopher.
The musical features music by ABBA members Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, lyrics by Tim Rice of “Evita” fame and a new book by Danny Strong (“Empire”).
Michele describes the role of the passionate Florence as her first “woman” character.
“This is the first real adult that I’ve ever played before,” she told Geist. “I can’t wait to get on this stage, and be Florence, and to feel that strength and that confidence, and she’s living in this world of men, and what does that mean? And I just love it.”
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