John Tartaglia Joins the NYC Pops for THE POLAR EXPRESS Holiday Concert, 12/19

According to reports from Carnegie Hall, Tony nominee and Avenue Q alum John Tartaglia will narrate the holiday children's classic The Polar Express in concert with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall this season.  The production will take place in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage on Saturday, December 19 at 2pm. The concert features a score by Alan Silvestri, who also wrote the music for the 2004 feature film adaptation of the event.

The Polar Express takes place on the night of Christmas Eve with a young boy is lying in bed waiting to hear the sound of Santa Claus's sleigh bells. Suddenly, he hears loud rumbling outside on the street as a magical train called The Polar Express pulls up in front of his house. The boy ventures outside and is invited by the train's conductor to journey to the North Pole. 

Pre-concert activities will take place one hour before each performance and are free to all ticket holders.

In addition to Tartaglia, The New York Pops features John Morris Russell, Conductor, and the Young People's Chorus of New York City. Francisco J. Núñez is Artistic Director.

Tickets start at $9 and can be purchased by clicking here or visiting www.carnegiehall.org.

John Tartaglia is an actor and puppeteer.  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 backup for Kevin Clash's Elmo. He performed Ernie for the second season of Play with Me Sesame, Oscar the Grouch for Sesame Street 4D and Kermit the Frog. He became a full time part of Sesame Street at the age of 18.

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, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical in 2004. He left the Broadway cast of Avenue Q on January 30, 2005. He 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, alongside Jonathan Freeman, who played Cogsworth, on November 21, 2006. He recently played Pinocchio in the new Broadway show, Shrek the Musical. Tartaglia played his final Shrek performance on August 16, 2009.