Tony Yazbeck Is Billy Flynn in Broadway's Chicago, Starting Aug. 29 | Playbill

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News Tony Yazbeck Is Billy Flynn in Broadway's Chicago, Starting Aug. 29 The Tony-winning revival of John Kander, Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse's Chicago welcomes Tony Yazbeck to the cast at Broadway's Ambassador Theatre Aug. 29. With this performance, Chicago becomes the fourth longest-running show in Broadway history, surpassing A Chorus Line.

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Tony Yazbeck Photo by John Fortunato

Yazbeck is stepping into the role of slick lawyer Billy Flynn for a nine-week engagement through Oct. 30. He succeeds Christopher Sieber, who played his final performance Aug. 26 in order to head out in the national tour of La Cage aux Folles.

Tony Yazbeck's Broadway credits include Phil Davis in Irving Berlin's White Christmas, Tulsa in the recent revival of Gypsy starring Patti LuPone (for which he earned an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination), Al in A Chorus Line, Never Gonna Dance, Oklahoma! and Gypsy with Tyne Daly. His Off-Broadway credits include the City Center Encores! productions of On The Town, Gypsy, The Apple Tree, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Pardon My English, as well as the York Theatre production of Fanny Hill.

The Broadway production currently stars two-time Tony Award nominee Charlotte d'Amboise as Roxie Hart, Nikka Graff Lanzarone as Velma Kelly, Chris Sullivan as Amos Hart and Carol Woods as Matron "Mama" Morton.

The milestone performance beating A Chorus Line's run was to be the matinee of Aug. 27, but since that show was cancelled due to the hurricane, Monday's show is the history-maker.

As previously announced, former "American Idol" judge Kara DioGuardi will make her Broadway debut as Roxie Hart in an eight-week engagement beginning Sept. 5. DioGuardi will be joined by longtime Chicago veteran Amra-Faye Wright as Velma Kelly. (Nikka Graff Lanzarone plays her final performance Sept. 4.) The revival of Chicago began life as one of the three annual Encores! presentations offered by City Center. The musical opened on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in Nov. 1996 where it remained through Feb. 1997. The musical transferred to the Shubert Theatre on Feb. 11, 1997, and played that house through Jan. 26, 2003. The revival reopened at the Ambassador Theatre, its current home, on Jan. 29, 2003.

Chicago won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical in 1997 as well as awards for actors Bebe Neuwirth and James Naughton, director Walter Bobbie, lighting designer Ken Billington and choreographer Ann Reinking. The original production was directed and choreographed by the late Bob Fosse.

The Ambassador Theatre is located at 219 West 49th Street.

Visit www.ChicagoTheMusical.com for more information.

 
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