This is the second post in my two part series about meeting the Sesame Street puppeteers last week at the London Hotel in Hollywood. I had the privilege of meeting and speaking with Carroll Spinney (Big Bird, and Oscar the Grouch) and Fran Brill (Zoe, and Prairie Dawn.)
Fran Brill is the creator of Prairie Dawn and Zoe on Sesame Street. Fran had always been an actress, and has sustained a multifaceted career as an actress and voice over performer in addition to her work on Sesame Street.
In speaking with Fran, I was mesmerized by how quickly she could shift in and out of different voices. (I had also visited her website FranBrill.com and heard her voice over demos. It is impossible to tell that all her voices come from the same person!)
When I asked her if she had any formal voice training, she said , “No,I get it mostly from the character, I think of people in my life, or people on the subway…it’s kind of channeling and I don’t know why I can do that, but it’s easy for me.”
She added that a lot of the puppeteers are very good at manipulating puppets, but they only have one voice or two voices. Brill was the first female puppeteer on the show, something that I could tell she was proud of.
“It’s taken almost 40 years to have a number of female puppet characters on the show,” she remarked. When I asked her why she thought that was, she told me there were a number of reasons: “First of all,” she said, “most of the writers were male, and also research showed that almost all children’s television shows are geared to boys. Research showed that girls will watch boys activities but boys will not watch girls activities.”
I had heard that about children’s movies: that it is harder to open a kid’s movie that has a female theme and a girl protagonist, because the boys won’t see it; whereas apparently girls will see movies with boy leads. I find both those points disturbing, as it really means that if that is the perception, then it will be increasingly difficult to attain a gender balance in kids’ programming – but I digress.
Sesame Street does have a large number of female puppet characters now, so it is balanced, and Fran told me that the bulk of the producers on the show are women.
Fran spoke passionately about the show, and how she pleased she was that the show is irreverent, always current, and even tries to be ahead of the times in terms of content. Just as I felt speaking with Carroll Spinney, I was delighted to be in the presence of an artist that has had such a fulfilling and meaningful career and also who seemed to appreciate that.
“ It’s been a great life for me.” Fran told me.
“Did you ever imagine it? “ I asked, as I do kind of buy into the idea that we all have to imagine our destinies in order to fulfill them.
“Absolutely not,” she said, “I had never played with a puppet in my life when I was hired.”
She also believes that they would never hire her today as she explained that kids now are coming out of college with puppeteering degrees. I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t be hired today, but thank goodness we’ll never know.
The folks at Sesame Street have generously given me a copy of 40 Years of Sunshine DVD to give away along with a gorgeous Sesame Street photo history book. These will go to one very lucky LACityMom.com reader! The DVD is such a classic, and highlights many of Sesame Street’s most beloved moments.
*****GIVEAWAY ******
Write in and tell me about how much you and your kids love Sesame Street and I’ll send the DVD and book your way. Your kids will be thrilled, and if you can bear the suspense, you could even slip it in their Christmas stocking.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Sesame street was a HUGE part of my childhood and now it’s a part of my daughter’s. She was slow to learn her letters and was getting very frustrated in school. We started watching Sesame street together and it has put the fun back into learning for her. YAY Sesame street.
Thanks for writing in Jess! I’ll send you the awesome DVD and book!
Lee