John Tartaglia

Jonathan Nicholas "John" Tartaglia (born February 16, 1978) is an American puppeteer, actor, singer, dancer, voice artist, and comedian.

Early life

Tartaglia (who goes by "Johnny") was born Jonathan Nicholas Tartaglia in Maple Shade Township, New Jersey on February 16, 1978.^[1] He joined Sesame Street's puppetry team at the age of 16 part-time, performing as a right hand and many minor characters, including Phoebe and being the understudy for Kevin Clash's Elmo. He performed Ernie for the second season of Play with Me Sesame and Oscar the Grouch for Sesame Street 4D. He became a full-time part of Sesame Street at the age of 16. Tartaglia is a graduate of Upper Dublin High School in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania.

Career

Tartaglia created and puppeteered the roles of Princeton (the recent college grad) and Rod (the closeted Republican investment banker) in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Avenue Q, which opened July 31, 2003. For the roles, he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical in 2004. He left the cast on January 30, 2005.

Tartaglia appeared in 2004 at the 14th annual Broadway Bares, which was a great success raising $525,000 to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.^[2]

Tartaglia reprised his roles as Princeton and Rod in the Las Vegas sit-down production of Avenue Q, until December 11, 2005. He then appeared in the musical Newsical 2006: The Next Edition in New York City. Tartaglia joined the cast of Beauty and the Beast as Lumière on November 21, 2006 until early June 2007. He was replaced by David deVries.

He appeared in his own television series for Playhouse Disney called Johnny and the Sprites as creator, executive producer, and star. While the episodes began as only 5-minute interstitials, the show began a full 30-minute series on January 13, 2007. The show began filming Season 2 during mid-2007.^[3]

In 2007, Tartaglia provided the voice for Mr. Bluelight in the Kmart commercials.

He played the roles of Pinocchio and the Magic Mirror in Shrek the Musical.^[4] After a try-out in Seattle the show landed in New York at The Broadway Theatre beginning December 14, 2008. He performed in the show until August 16, 2009 and was replaced by Robb Sapp. He returned on December 15, 2009 where he stayed until its closure on January 3, 2010.

Tartaglia is currently producing John Tartaglia's ImaginOcean in New York City, a puppet show meant for audiences between the ages of 2 and 8 about fish. They glow in the dark while the actors are in black, giving the effect that the puppets are floating. The show plays Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Along with ImaginOcean, he performed in L.A. at The Blank Theatre Company production of The Temperamentals which showed April 9-May 22, 2011 at the 2nd Stage Theatre. He was cast as Genie in the production of Aladdin in St. Louis at the Muny from July 5–13, 2012.

In 2011, Tartaglia was named a "Givenik Ambassador" from the Broadway / charity site Givenik.

Tartaglia currently hosts a radio show on Sirius XM On Broadway called 'Sunday Funday with John Tartaglia'.

References

External links

• John Tartaglia at the Internet Movie Database
• John Tartaglia at the Internet Broadway Database
• John Tartaglia & Michael Shawn Lewis production Company
• John Tartaglia talks with Craft Ideas Weekly about how he started making puppets
• Stephanie D'Abruzzo and John Tartaglia - Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.org