TypeError: Error #1034: Question

Hi,

i have created a simple movie clip of a blue circle on my first layer but not given it an instance name. I am trying to tell Flash that the following method is legal for the main timeline in the actions panel and send the timeline to frame 20

MovieClip(parent).gotoAndStop(20);

however when get to run it i get the following error:

TypeError: Error #1034: Type Coercion failed: cannot convert flash.display::Stage@bc88b51 to flash.display.MovieClip.
at test1_fla::MainTimeline/frame1()

I got this code snippet from a book called Learning Actionscript 3.0, pg 65. Can somebody tell me how i can get the movieclip to send the main timeline to frame 20 pls

Thanks