Santino Fontana Will Fill In For Gavin Creel in HELLO, DOLLY!

Tony Award nominee Santino Fontana, "one of the most promising young actors to emerge in the New York Theater in recent years" (The New York Times), will step into the role of Cornelius Hackl in the most successful and beloved Broadway production of the year, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical Revival, Hello, Dolly!.

Fontana, filling in for Gavin Creel, who won a 2017 Tony Award for the role, joins the company for a limited time beginning Tuesday, March 13. Creel will be out of the show during this time as he recovers from back surgery.

"Santino's an amazing performer," Creel said. "He'll be absolutely wonderful in the part."

This production of Michael Stewart's and Jerry Herman's Hello, Dolly!, winner of four 2017 Tony Awards including Best Revival of a Musical, remains one of the most coveted tickets of the year, with audiences rushing to see the "historic event" (Rolling Stone) that has left "tears on the cheeks of critics" (The Washington Post). This production's history-making run broke the record for best first day of ticket sales in Broadway history, holds the record for the largest pre-performance advance sales in Broadway history, broke the box office record at the Shubert Theatre twelve times, and shattered The Shubert Organization's all-time-record ten times.

Directed by four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks and choreographed by Tony Award winner Warren Carlyle, Hello, Dolly! began performances on Broadway on March 15, 2017, and officially opened on Thursday, April 20, 2017.

This Hello, Dolly!, the first new production of the classic musical (based on Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker) to appear on Broadway since it opened more than fifty years ago, pays tribute to the work of its original director/ choreographer Gower Champion, which has been hailed both then and now as one of the greatest stagings in musical theater history.

The first national tour of Hello, Dolly! kicks off this October in the Connor Palace at Playhouse Square in Cleveland, Ohio, led by Tony Award-winning legend Betty Buckley.

SANTINO FONTANA (Cornelius Hackl) received a Tony Award nomination for his role as Prince Charming in Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella, and in 2012, he won Obie and Lucille Lortel Awards for his acclaimed performance in Sons of the Prophet. Most recently, he starred in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and 1776, as part of the New York City Center Encores!series. His other theater credits include Lincoln Center Theater's Act One, which was also filmed for PBS; The Importance of Being Earnest (Clarence Derwent Award); A View From the Bridge; Brighton Beach Memoirs (Drama Desk Award); Billy Elliot; Zorba; and Sunday in the Park With George. His film credits include the voice of Prince Hans in Disney's Academy Award-winning animated feature, Frozen, and Sisters, opposite Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. His television roles include Greg on the CW's critically acclaimed musical comedy series, "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend;" David Saperstein, opposite Jennifer Lopez and Ray Liotta, in NBC's drama series "Shades of Blue;" and guest appearances on "The Good Wife," "Nurse Jackie," "Brain Dead," "Royal Pains" and Amazon's "Mozart in the Jungle." He can also be seen in the popular web series, "Submissions Only." As a vocalist, Santino recently performed in such jazz venues as Lincoln Center's Appel Room and Birdland. As an orchestra soloist, he has sung at Carnegie Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and with the New York Philharmonic, the New York Pops, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He will next appear on Broadway, starring in the title role of the new musical, Tootsie, with a score by David Yazbek.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos