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.
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.
Tartaglia is now working on his own television show for Playhouse Disney titled Johnny and the Sprites as creator, executive producer, and star. While the episodes began as only five-minute interstitials, the show began a full 30-minute series on January 13, 2007. The show began filming season two during mid 2007.
He played the roles of Pinocchio and the Magic Mirror in Shrek the Musical, another musical in which Tartaglia also performed all of the puppets in the show. 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 Wicked star, 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. It's 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, John 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. John is cast as Genie in the current 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.
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