Chicago Revival Welcomes Return of Tony Yazbeck March 5

By Andrew Gans
and Adam Hetrick
05 Mar 2012

Tony Yazbeck
Tony Yazbeck
Photo by Jeremy Daniel

Tony Yazbeck returns to the role of Billy Flynn in the long-running Broadway revival of Kander and Ebb's Chicago beginning March 5 at the Ambassador Theatre.

Yazbeck previously played a nine-week engagement in the musical last summer. He joins current cast members Bianca Marroquin as Roxie Hart, Amra-Faye Wright as Velma Kelly, Raymond Bokhour as Amos Hart and Carol Woods as Matron "Mama" Morton.

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.

As previously reported, Christie Brinkley will also reprise her performance as Roxie Hart in a three-week limited return engagement beginning April 6.

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 November 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 W. 49th Street.

Visit ChicagoTheMusical.com for more information.