John Tartaglia

John Nicholas Tartaglia, born February 16, 1978, in Maple Shade Township, New Jersey, is an American actor, singer, and puppeteer whose career spans Broadway, television, and children's media. He attended Upper Dublin High School in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1996.

Tartaglia's puppetry career began at age 16, when he joined the Sesame Street team on a part-time basis. In that capacity he performed and assisted with minor characters including Phoebe and served as understudy to Kevin Clash's Elmo. He became a full-time member of the Sesame Street company at 18. His work on the series included performing as Oscar the Grouch for Sesame Street 4D, serving as a digital puppeteer for the "Elmo's World" segments, and portraying the character Tingo on Sesame English. He also performed as Ernie during the second season of Play with Me Sesame.

His Broadway career spans 1994 to 2008 and includes a range of prominent credits. Tartaglia originated the puppeteer roles of Princeton and Rod in the Tony Award-winning musical Avenue Q, which opened on July 31, 2003. His performance earned him a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 2004, as well as a Theatre World Award that same year. He remained with the production until January 30, 2005, and later reprised both roles in the Las Vegas production of Avenue Q from August to December 2005. In 2006, Tartaglia joined the cast of Beauty and the Beast on Broadway as Lumière, a role he held until June 2007. He also appeared in Hair and SIX: The Musical, and performed in the musical The Sleeping Beauty and the Beast. When Shrek The Musical opened on Broadway on December 14, 2008, Tartaglia played Pinocchio, Puss in Boots, and the Magic Mirror, and also puppeteered the dragon. He performed in the production until August 16, 2009, returned on December 14, 2009, and remained until the show closed on January 3, 2010.

Beyond Broadway, Tartaglia created, executive produced, and starred in the Playhouse Disney short series Johnny and the Sprites, which expanded to a full 30-minute series on January 13, 2007, with Tartaglia playing the roles of Johnny and Sage. In 2003, he performed as DJ 2 in the television series Animal Jam. He appeared in Newsical 2006: The Next Edition in December 2005 and performed in The Temperamentals at the Blank Theatre Company in Los Angeles from April 9 to May 22, 2011. He played Genie in the production of Aladdin at The Muny in St. Louis from July 5 to 13, 2012. In 2007, he provided the voice for Mr. Bluelight in Kmart commercials.

Tartaglia created and wrote John Tartaglia's ImaginOcean, an Off-Broadway production featuring glow-in-the-dark puppets that ran at New World Stages from March 31, 2010, to September 4, 2011. The show received a nomination for the 2010 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience. He also hosted a radio program on Sirius XM On Broadway titled Sunday Funday with John Tartaglia and was named a Givenik Ambassador by the Broadway and charity site Givenik in 2011.

His work in children's television continued with the creation of the PBS Kids series Splash and Bubbles in 2016, for which he voiced Splash and other recurring characters. In 2017, he performed the character Hank in the Netflix series Julie's Greenroom. His puppetry credits also include additional puppeteer work on productions such as The Happytime Murders and Fraggle Rock: Rock On!, on which he performed Gobo Fraggle, taking over the role from Jerry Nelson, as well as providing puppetry for Boober Fraggle, Uncle Traveling Matt, and Wembley Fraggle. In January 2024, it was announced that Tartaglia had joined The Jim Henson Company's development team as creative supervisor of future Fraggle Rock projects, while also contributing to the development and production of new television and live show projects for the company.

In 2004, Tartaglia appeared at the 14th annual Broadway Bares, an event that raised $525,000 for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Tartaglia is gay. He married Michael Shawn Lewis in New York in 2012; the couple divorced in 2016.