Dennis Parlato Takes On Role Of El Gallo In THE FANTASTICKS 7/13-8/2

Dennis Parlato, seen on Broadway in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Sound of Music and The Graduate, will assume the role of El Gallo in Off Broadway's The Fantasticks from July 13 through August 2, 2009 while Lewis Cleale, who normally plays the role, appears in Camelot at The Muny.

Parlato recently appeared in The Vertical Hour and Paint Your Wagon at The Pioneer Theatre in Salt Lake City. His Broadway credits include Lawrence in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Mr. Robinson in The Graduate, John the Baptist in Salome with Al Pacino, Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music, CIA agent Walter Anderson in Chess, Rooster in Annie and Zach in A Chorus Line. Off Broadway and regional credits include the title roles in Cyrano de Bergerac, Barrymore, J.B., and The Master Builder; Prospero in The Tempest, Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Uncle Peck in How I Learned to Drive and Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls. TV and film work includes One Life to Live, Loving, Law & Order, Tom Di Cillo's Johnny Suede and Delirious, Eddie Muller's Dillinger's Dead, Rick, First Born, Starting Out in the Evening with Frank Langella and Bride Wars.

The Fantasticks (music by Harvey Schmidt, book/lyrics/direction by Tom Jones) is a captivating and simple romantic comedy about a boy and girl who fall in and out of love at the hands of their meddling fathers. The audience uses its imagination to follow the narrator, El Gallo, as he creates a world of moonlight and magic until the boy and girl find their way back to one other. The score, which includes the hit songs "Try To Remember," "They Were You" and "Soon It's Gonna Rain," is as timeless as the story itself.

Having played a record-breaking 17,162 performances in its original run at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village, The Fantasticks is now playing in the heart of Times Square at The Snapple Theater Center, located at 210 West 50th Street at Broadway. It is the longest-running musical in the world.

The Fantasticks company also includes Tom Flagg (Broadway's Will Rogers Follies, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Oklahoma), Gene Jones (No Country for Old Men, Broadway's Big River, Joe Turner's Come and Gone), Addi McDaniel (Disney's High School Musical at North Shore Music Theatre, Little House on the Prairie at The Guthrie), Michael Nostrand, (A&E's Emmy Award-winning Peter Pan, national tours of Jelly's Last Jam, The Mystery of Edwin Drood), Evy Ortiz, Richard Roland (Broadway's The Scarlet Pimpernel, Follies), Steve Routman (The Keen Company's The Conscientious Objector, Awake and Sing! at Arena Stage), Jonathan Schwartz, Douglas Ullman, Jr. (A Funny Thing... at Florida Repertory Theater, The Sound of Music Asia tour) and John Thomas Waite (title role in Broadway's Amadeus).

The Fantasticks performance schedule is as follows: Mondays at 8PM, Wednesdays at 2PM, Thursdays and Fridays at 8PM, Saturdays at 2PM & 8PM, and Sundays at 3PM & 7:15PM. Tickets are available by calling the box office at (212) 921-7862 or Ticketmaster.com at (212) 307-4100. Specially-priced $30 student tickets are also available at the box office.

Photo: Glory Crampton and Dennis Parlato