Austin Colby to Star as Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby National Tour

Austin Colby will join the North American tour of The Great Gatsby as Jay Gatsby for a limited engagement. Colby will celebrate his official opening at the Philadelphia press night on October 21. An original Broadway cast member, he played Tom Buchanan and served as an understudy for the role of Jay Gatsby. 

Colby’s additional theater credits include Masquerade and Jersey Boys, as well as the national tours of Disney’s Frozen and The Sound of Music.

“It was a pleasure to have Austin in our original Broadway company, and I'm thrilled that audiences across the country will now get to experience his charismatic, enigmatic and extremely well sung Gatsby in the coming weeks,” said director Marc Bruni in a statement.

Colby will join tour cast members Senzel Ahmady as Daisy Buchanan, Joshua Grosso as Nick Carraway, Leanne Robinson as Jordan Baker, Will Branner as Tom Buchanan, Tally Sessions as George Wilson, Edward Staudenmayer as Meyer Wolfsheim and Lila Coogan as Myrtle Wilson.

The Great Gatsby features music and lyrics by Tony nominees Jason Howland and Nathan Tysen, a book by Kait Kerrigan, and is choreographed by Dominique Kelley. The show won the 2024 Tony Award for Best Costume Design for Linda Cho’s designs, and it won the 2024 Broadway.com Audience Choice Award for Favorite New Musical. The Broadway production continues to play the Broadway Theatre.

Set in the Roaring Twenties, the story follows eccentric and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby, who will stop at nothing in the pursuit of the lost love of his youth, Daisy Buchanan. Through its fascinatingly nuanced characters—driven by complex inner lives, erupting with extravagance and longing—this epic tale has always been destined to sing.