Mitski, Eboni Booth, and Whitney White Join THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT Broadway Creative Team

The creative team has been revealed for the musical adaptation of The Queen's Gambit, Walter Tevis’ best-selling novel which became a record-breaking streaming sensation on Netflix. Internationally acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated singer-songwriter Mitski will write the music & lyrics, playwright Eboni Booth (Primary Trust, Paris) will write the book of the musical, and Obie Award-winner Whitney White (Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, On Sugarland) will direct.  Joining Tony & Anthem Award-winning mini-studio Level Forward (POTUS, How to Dance in Ohio) on the producing team are Tony Award-winning actress and advocate Adrienne Warren (Tina), Prince Fellowship recipient Lawryn LaCroix (POTUS, Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man & The Pool), and Tony Award-winning producer Mara Isaacs (Hadestown).
 

“Before Level Forward even brought the idea of making a musical of The Queen’s Gambit, I was a fan of the Netflix show, and an even greater fan of the original novel. So I was already determined to be a member of this team,” says composer & lyricist Mitski. “And then I met Eboni and Whitney, and my determination grew tenfold! I absolutely had to be a part of this! I am ecstatic to get to work with all of these amazing creatives, who’ve each built beautiful and unique repertoires of their own.”

 
“The Queen's Gambit is a wholly original story about yearning for connection and finding your way in life, no matter the barriers,” says book writer Eboni Booth. “I couldn't be more thrilled to explore this world in the company of such extraordinary artists. Musicals are one of my first loves, and I feel so lucky to be tasked with the challenge of bringing Beth Harmon's haunting and inspiring journey to the stage.”
 
“Everyone has desires, hopes, aspirations, and ideas about who they are and what they can offer the world. The Queen’s Gambit takes us into a story of a brilliant young woman on the hunt for all these things,” says director Whitney White. “It is a story that feels like mine and I’m excited to be a part of this exceptional team creating it anew for the stage.”
 
The producers add, “The Queen’s Gambit connects us all in the universal pursuit of becoming the person we are meant to be. Part of our journey is to bring this beloved story to the musical stage, and provide three revelatory artists – Mitski, Eboni Booth, and Whitney White, all at the top of their craft – with a chance to share the captivating world of Beth Harmon with live audiences.”
 
The Queen's Gambit tells the story of Beth Harmon, a scrappy orphan turned once-in-a-generation chess prodigy. As soon as she touches a pawn, her senses grow sharper, her thinking clearer, and for the first time in her life she feels herself fully in control. By the age of sixteen, she’s competing for the U.S. Open championship.
 
Published in 1983, Tevis’ novel became a New York Times Best Seller and was widely acclaimed for its thrilling storyline and the obsessive accuracy surrounding the game of chess. In their book review, The New York Times wrote, “Beth Harmon has the dedication of a Biblical saint, a freak memory and an ability to synthesize and create and blow her little world apart with a kind of startling originality that nobody else can match. That is what chess on its highest level is all about." Netflix’s miniseries of the same name, released in 2020, received similar critical acclaim and captured the world’s attention, becoming their most-watched scripted miniseries, with over 62 million viewers in the first month alone.
 
Details about the musical’s world premiere production will be announced at a later date. Stay connected to the production by visiting our website: https://www.thequeensgambitmusical.com, signing up to receive updates, and following on social @queensgambitbway.
 
 

Mitski (Composer/Lyricist)

Japanese-American artist Mitski’s music defies genre - encompassing maximalist pop, foreboding, tense guitar play, and a rich and dramatic orchestral instrumentation, often within the supposed confines of the same song. She is "a richly ambitious writer and arranger who can buttress longing with strange and lovely art-rock” (Los Angeles Times). Across seven albums, from her breakout, 2016’s Puberty 2, to 2018’s Be The Cowboy - named Album of the Year by Esquire, New York Magazine, Pitchfork and more - and this year’s The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, praised by Billboard as “a studio masterclass," the critical acclaim has remained fervent and absolute. The New York Times has described Mitski’s craft as “strategic, sure-footed, vulnerable and prepared to face all sorts of trouble” and The Telegraphdeclared Mitski “her generation’s most gifted songwriter”. With The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We’s hit single, “My Love Mine All Mine," Mitski has charted in the top 30 of the Billboard Hot 100 and top 10 of the UK’s Official Top 100. On stage, Mitski’s sense of theatre and drama is finessed incorporating step-perfect choreography and interpretative dance. Backed by her band, Mitski is front and center, anchoring fans’ attention with a phantasmagorical presence. It’s a show that has sold out venues across the globe, including multiple nights at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, consecutive nights in ever-increasing theatre-sized rooms in the UK, a headlining slot at the Pitchfork Music Festival, and an extraordinary show to close The Park Stage at Glastonbury 2022. Every show of her forthcoming 2024 tour is sold out.
 

Eboni Booth (Playwright)

Eboni Booth is a writer and actor from New York City. Her plays include Primary Trust (Roundabout Theatre) and Paris (Atlantic Theater). For television, she has written for HBO Max’s Julia. As an actor, Eboni has appeared in productions at Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, Manhattan Theater Club, Ars Nova, WP Theater, Page 73, Soho Rep., Clubbed Thumb, and more. Eboni is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and the recipient of a Steinberg Playwright Award, a Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, and a John Gassner award. She is a graduate of Juilliard’s playwriting program and the University of Vermont.
 

Whitney White (Director)

Whitney White is an Obie and Lily award winning director, writer and musician based in New York. Recent directing: Jaja's African Hair Braiding (Broadway), The Secret Life of Bees (The Almeida), Soft (Lucille Lortel nomination for Outstanding Direction), On Sugarland (Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk nominations for Outstanding Direction), What to Send Up When it Goes Down (The Public, Playwrights Horizons, BAM, Woolly Mammoth, America Repertory Theatre), The Amen Corner (Shakespeare DC), Our Dear Dead Drug Lord (Second Stage/WP Theater), For All The Women Who Thought They Were Mad(Soho Rep). Original works include: Semblance (NYTW), Definition (Bushwick Starr), and Macbeth in Stride for which she won an Elliot Norton Award for Best Musical Performance (American Repertory Theatre, Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Philadelphia Theatre Company).   Fellowships include: Sundance Theatre Lab, NYTW 2050 Fellowship, Drama League Next Wave, Jerome Fellowship, Colt Coeur, Roundabout Directing Fellowship. Whitney is a Rolex Arts Initiative Protegee, an Associate Artist at the Roundabout, and an Associate Director at Shakespeare DC. Recently she was also a writer on Boots Riley's upcoming show I'm A Virgo (Amazon / Media Res). MFA Brown Trinity Rep, BA Northwestern.
 

Level Forward (Producer)

Level Forward is a Tony Award and Anthem Award-winning, story-driven and impact-minded film, theater, and television mini-studio. Honored by NYCLU/ACLU and New York Women’s Foundation, the Level Forward team is comprised of storytellers, entrepreneurs, and social changemakers dedicated to working with like-minded partners to illustrate how social impact is as much about good business as it is about public good. Level Forward is, and has been, the lead producer and general partner on the Broadway productions of How to Dance in Ohio, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumb Ass Are Seven Women Trying To Keep Him Alive, and Slave Play. Additional stage work includes: Parade, What The Constitution Means To Me, Sanctuary City, Jagged Little Pill, and Oklahoma! Produced films include Mountains, Body Parts, The Year Between, The Assistant, Holler, Rebel Hearts, and Topside. www.levelforward.co
 

Adrienne Warren (Producer)

In theatre, Adrienne Warren is perhaps most well known for her Tony Award winning performance as Tina Turner in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. In Television and film, Warren can currently be seen in Hulu’s “Black Cake”, Netflix’s “Rustin”, and TriStar Pictures’ The Woman King. She also starred as Mamie Till-Mobley, in the ABC limited series, “Women of the Movement”, created/written by Marissa Jo Cerar and produced by Jay-Z, Will Smith, and Aaron Kaplan. Warren has signed a multi-year development deal with Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, in which she will collaborate exclusively with Kapital on the development of ongoing and limited television series. Warren is also a co-founder of the Broadway Advocacy Coalition (BAC), which unites artists, experts, students, and community leaders to use storytelling and artistry to combat systemic racism. BAC received a special Tony Award in 2021.
 

Lawryn LaCroix (Producer)

Lawryn LaCroix is a New York City/ London based producer. A resident producer at New York Theatre Workshop. A recipient of The Prince Fellowship and The Theater Leadership Project (TTLP) along with being in the inaugural group of resident producers for The Shubert Organization’s Artistic Circle. And Broadway League fellowship recipient. A graduate of the MA Creative Producing program at The Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts (London). And Marymount Manhattan College (NYC). Currently a Co-Producer on Mike Birbiglia’s transfer of The Old Man & The Pool in the West End at the Wyndham Theatre. Previously in NYC at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre Lincoln Center. Past credits: Associate Producer of POTUS on Broadway, and Producing Assistant of Macbeth on Broadway; SHE/HER at Ps21 Chatham; Golden Globe winner Brian Cox's (HBO's “Succession”) directed play Sinners in London at the Playground Theatre; and The Scranton Scratch Night, a digital playwright fest, hosted by SNL's Heidi Gardner. In 2017, Lawryn started her production company Pinkhouse Productions, which is dedicated to producing meaningful, inspiring, personal work. Pinkhouse has worked with Tony, Emmy, and Golden Globe winners on original productions, both domestically and Internationally. Pinkhouse strives to empower in the arts and provide the means to which storytellers can assert their individual voices.
 

Mara Isaacs (Producer)

Mara Isaacs is a Tony® and Grammy® Award-winning creative producer and founder of Octopus Theatricals, an independent production company dedicated to an expansive range of offerings—from experimental to commercial—for local and global audiences. Broadway credits include Hadestown (8 Tony’s including Best Musical); Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Tony Award Best Play); Anna in the Tropics (Tony Nomination Best Play); Translations (Tony Nomination Best Revival).  Off-Broadway: Patrick Page’s All the Devils Are Here (currently at the DR2). Upcoming/In Development: Hadestown(London West End 2024); Bhangra Nation (Birmingham Rep 2024); Goddess; Dreaming Zenzile; (…Iphigenia) by Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding; Dianne McIntyre Group In The Same Tongue; I Feel Myself to be Part of Something (documentary film series); and many more. Founder of ProducerHub.org, created to support producers and artists in the independent sector. Octopustheatricals.com
 

Walter Tevis (Novelist)

Iconic American Author Walter Tevis (1928-1984) is the author of The Queen’s Gambit first published in 1984 and released in 2020 on Netflix where it became a mega hit for the streaming service having been watched by 62 million households over its first 28 days of release. In addition, he is the author of The Man Who Fell To Earth, The Color of Money, The Hustler, Mockingbird and The Steps of the Sun and the new collection of short stories The King is Dead. The adaptation of his first novel The Hustler in 1961 received nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Paul Newman as “Fast Eddie.” The sequel to The Hustler, The Color of Money, directed by Martin Scorsese, was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Actor win for Newman who reprised his role as “Fast Eddie.” Many may know the1976 film The Man Who Fell To Earth starring David Bowie, but the novel itself has been praised as an important work of science fiction. Bowie continued his connection to the story in his musical adaptation Lazarus. Tevis also wrote a second science fiction work, Mockingbird, currently in development at Searchlight Pictures.

Photo credit: Michaelah Reynolds