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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. As Beth hones her skills on the male-centered professional circuit, the stakes get higher, her isolation grows, and the thought of escape becomes all the more tempting.
Currently in development, the musical adaptation of Walter Tevis' best selling novel The Queen's Gambit, will showcase an exceptional creative team—Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Eboni Booth (Primary Trust) will write the book, Oscar nominated internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter Mitski will write the music & lyrics, and Tony Award nominated Whitney White (Jaja’s African Hair Braiding) will direct.
CREATIVE TEAM
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Eboni Booth
Eboni Booth is a writer and actor from New York City. Her plays include Primary Trust (Roundabout Theatre, Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Outer Circle Critics Award) and Paris (Atlantic Theater, John Gassner Award). For television, she has written for Hulu’s We Were the Lucky Ones and HBO Max’s Julia. As an actor, Eboni has appeared in productions at Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, Manhattan Theatre Club, Ars Nova, WP Theater, Page 73, Soho Rep., Clubbed Thumb, and more. Eboni is currently the Judith Champion Playwriting Fellow at Manhattan Theatre Club and a resident playwright at New Dramatists. She is the recipient of a Dramatists Guild Horton Foote Award, a Steinberg Playwright Award, and a Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting. She is a graduate of Juilliard’s playwriting program and the University of Vermont.
Mitski
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 Telegraph declared 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.
Whitney White
Whitney White is a Tony-nominated, Obie Award and Lilly Award winning director, actor, and musician based in Brooklyn, New York. Whitney was a staff writer on the Boots Riley series I'm a Virgo for Amazon. She is the current recipient of the Susan Stroman Directing award, an Artistic Associate at the Roundabout, and a part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Her original musical Definition was part of the 2019 Sundance Theatre Lab and 2016 ANT Fest, and her five-part musical exploration of Shakespeare’s women and ambition is currently under commission with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK. Most recently, she directed the Broadway premiere of LIBERATION, THE LAST FIVE YEARS, starring Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren, and SATURDAY CHURCH at New York Theatre Workshop, a new musical featuring songs by Sia and Honey Dijon. Whitney is currently developing a stage adaptation of THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT with Eboni Booth and composer Mitski.
Recent directing: Walden (Second Stage), Jordans (Public Theater), 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, Philadelphia Theatre Company).
Fellowships include Sundance Theatre Lab, NYTW 2050 Fellowship, Drama League Next Wave, Jerome Fellowship, Colt Coeur, Roundabout Directing Fellowship. MFA Brown Trinity Rep, BA Northwestern.
PRODUCING TEAM