NEW YORK (AP) — Lea Michele was just a kid actor backstage at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway when she first heard a song from the musical “Chess” on a stereo. Some three decades later, she finds herself singing that same tune in the same theater.

The “Glee” and Broadway veteran, who got her professional start in “Les Misérables” at age 8, has returned, now a mother and a bankable star, to her old stomping grounds, which coincidentally is the very theater where “Chess” made its debut in 1988.

“The Imperial Theatre really has a soul. Every show that’s ever been in it is absorbed in the walls. It’s a little eerie, but very powerful. Other theaters can feel a little sterile, but this does not feel that way,” she says.

She remembers exactly where she sat the first time she saw “Les M

See Full Page