Matteo Lane Just Made His Broadway Debut As Chicago’s Slick New Billy Flynn
Matteo Lane has gone from selling out comedy rooms to defending murderesses on Broadway.
The openly gay comedian began performances as Billy Flynn in the Tony-winning revival of Chicago on 22 June, taking the role of the smooth-talking lawyer at the Ambassador Theatre in New York. His run lasts through 19 July, when Dancing with the Stars champion Mark Ballas steps back in.
On paper, stand-up comic to silver-tongued lawyer is a hard left turn. In practice it suits him. Can he actually sing? New York audiences are finding out, and the early clips going around suggest the answer is yes.
From sold-out tours to a Broadway courtroom
Lane is no small-room act. He is midway through his third international tour, We Gotta Catch Up, and has played Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. His specials Al Dente, Hair Plugs and Heartache and The Advice Special built his name, and you have probably seen him on Abbott Elementary or Survival of the Thickest.
He dropped a cookbook, Your Pasta Sucks, in 2025. Earlier this year we covered his viral bit about spotting straight men at the gym, which pulled more than 180,000 likes.
A big update offstage, too
The Broadway news arrived just after a more personal one. On his podcast I Never Liked You, Lane confirmed that he and Rodrigo Aburto, the dancer he married in August 2023, have split.
He kept it gracious. “We did break up, but the good thing about this is that him and I are still friends with each other,” he said. He has since briefly dated Italian model Gianluca Volgare, and says he is on good terms with both men.
So the personal life is in flux and the career is climbing anyway. If you want to see Lane work a jury before 19 July, New York is the place. Tickets are on sale now.
