Gregory Jbara

A celebrated musical talent on the Broadway stage, actor Gregory Jbara captured the Tony for his performance in "Billy Elliot the Musical" in 2009 while also enjoying a long career as a supporting player in films and television for over two decades. A graduate of the Juilliard School's celebrated drama program, Jbara's stage and screen career began at roughly the same time in the late '80s: the former launched with the Obie-winning "Serious Money" in 1988, while the latter began with a series of guest shots on TV and the occasional feature film. Both facets of his career blossomed to varying degrees in the 1990s, with roles in major Broadway productions of "Damn Yankees" and "Victor/Victoria" and features like "In & Out" (1997) and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1999). In 2005, Jbara received a Drama Desk nomination for "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," which preceded his biggest theatrical triumph to date: the Tony for "Billy Elliot," along with other major Broadway awards. If Jbara's screen career didn't match the heights of his stage efforts, he remained extremely active as a screen character actor, most notably on TV shows like "Blue Bloods" (CBS, 2010- ), and features such as "Remember Me" (2010). That Jbara could be a celebrated Broadway figure and a prolific screen actor was testimony to the versatility of his talent.