CHICAGO Honors Facebook Fans With Free Performance, 1/30

An all-star roster of celebrated CHICAGO alumni will celebrate CHICAGO's "Facebook Fan Day," a one-of-a-kind performance marking the first time in Broadway history that a production has given away its entire house to Facebook fans for FREE. Participants include Tony Award winner Chita Rivera (Broadway's original Velma Kelly), Vincent Pastore (Amos Hart), Tony Award winner Lillias White (Matron "Mama" Morton), Tony Award winner Karen Ziemba (Roxie Hart), Brent Barrett (Billy Flynn), Rob Bartlett (Amos Hart), Amra-Faye Wright (Velma Kelly), Carol Woods (Matron "Mama" Morton) and many more, plus current CHICAGO stars Bianca Marroquin (Roxie Hart), Leigh Zimmerman (Velma Kelly), Colman Domingo (Billy Flynn), Robert Creighton (Amos Hart) and LaVon Fisher-Wilson (Matron "Mama" Morton), joined by producer Barry Weissler, special guest hosts Julie James and Seth Rudetsky of SiriusXM Radio's "On Broadway" channel, and over 1,000 of CHICAGO's top fans, all of whom are attending this very special performance for FREE!!

The event will take place on Sunday, January 30, 2011.

The "Facebook Fan Day" initiative first began on Monday, November 15, when CHICAGO launched an exclusive online contest on its Facebook fan page. The rules: any fan who recruited 10 of their friends to "Like" CHICAGO on the popular social networking site would receive a FREE ticket to the Sunday, January 30 matinee performance.

Within a few short hours, the entire performance was full. The response from CHICAGO fans was so literally overwhelming that the Fan Page administrators had to shut down the contest application after 5 hours because the user traffic was so immense that the program couldn't keep up with all of the interactions!

"We see that online social networking plays an extremely vital role in building audiences -- on Broadway, on the road and throughout the world," said Barry Weissler. "I'm pleased to report that our latest endeavor, 'Facebook Fan Day,' was met with such incredible enthusiasm. It's our way of saying a very special 'thank you' to those wonderful online fans that have continued to champion our show with such incredible passion and excitement over the years. CHICAGO wouldn't be what it is today without our fans, and I look forward to seeing the entire performance filled to the rafters with Facebook fans on January 30!"

Following the success of the "Facebook Fan Day" contest, CHICAGO took yet another step towards directly engaging with its audience earlier this month, when it launched a second online contest allowing fans to select the key artwork for its next full-scale advertising campaign.

"For the past 14 years, CHICAGO has continued to make a name for itself with its provacative, fabulously inventive and ever-changing ad campaigns," Weissler said. "As we've now entered our 15th year on Broadway, we're happy to send an additional 'thank you' to our loyal fans by giving them a rare opportunity to select our next campaign. After all, our fans know what audiences like best about CHICAGO, and we want to hear from them."

CHICAGO is the sixth longest-running production in Broadway history, as well as Broadway's longest-running musical revival. It is the winner of six 1997 Tony Awards including Best Musical Revival.

Visit CHICAGO online at www.chicagothemusical.com or www.facebook.com/chicagothemusical.