![]() Everything is changing so fast! With both these pieces of news, this summer feels like the end of a Sesame Street era. ![]() Now, the show has also announced that it will air new episodes first to the paying customers of HBO, screening episodes on the free-to-viewers PBS after nine months. When I learned in June that actress Sonia Manzano would be retiring from her role as Maria on the show after 44 years, I was floored. She had a life that was rich with family and neighbors, who she lived among and learned with. And there was also Maria-the non-puppet neighbor, mom, wife, friend, and worker. Single tickets are $500 at cdm.org/legacy or 40.I don’t remember the first time I watched Sesame Street. at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, 150 W. ![]() The Legacy for Children Award gala is May 19 at 6 p.m. “I don’t have a degree in early childhood education or drama, so it’s interesting to me that I ended up in this field, and I’m always drawn to kids. “I never thought I’d end up being a children’s television personality and an educator,” she says. That she is in these people’s company is still something of a surprise to Manzano, who left college in her junior year to appear off Broadway in “Godspell,” then went directly to “Sesame Street.” “That makes me feel great that I can rub elbows with people of their ilk.” “I’m thrilled to be in the company of Fred Rogers and Carol Spinney,” the man inside the Big Bird suit. ![]() The actress and author is not the first icon of PBS children’s programming to be honored at the museum’s annual fundraiser, and she name-checks a “Neighborhood” legend and a longtime “Sesame Street” Muppeteer when discussing her award. The Children’s Discovery Museum will pay tribute to Manzano at the Legacy awards gala on May 19. She adds that her own memoir, named one of the best young adult books of 2015 by both the New York Times and the Kirkus Review, was her way of “paying tribute to my crazy family.” “It’s a miserable story told with compassion and a sense of humor,” she says of McCourt’s memoir. Manzano had already written three children’s picture books and a young adult novel when she was inspired to write about her childhood after reading “Angela’s Ashes,” Frank McCourt’s account of growing up impoverished in Ireland. Aimed at teenage readers, “Becoming Maria” recounts her path from a poor family ravaged by her father’s alcoholism to a theater scholarship at Carnegie Mellon University. It was in part to make sense of her own world that Manzano decided to write her memoir in 2015. “As a trusted adult, one of Manzano’s greatest contributions as Maria was helping children better understand themselves and make sense of the world,” Jennings adds. Marilee Jennings, executive director of the Children’s Discovery Museum, says Manzano’s ability to help children develop social and emotional skills like empathy, compassion and acceptance are a big part of the legacy she’s created for children. “We helped kids deal with what society threw at them.” “Each new crop of kids had new problems,” she says. Over the course of Manzano’s 44-year career-which was capped by a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2016 Daytime Emmys-the show dealt with everything from the aftermath of 9-11 to what it’s like to have a parent serving jail time. Initially, she adds, “it was an effort to banish racism and to let African Americans enter elementary school at the same level as their middle class peers and give them a better shot at succeeding.” In addition to teaching preschoolers their ABCs and 123s, Manzano says, “Sesame Street” has always been intended to reflect contemporary social and cultural issues. “I started to see them implement my ideas and thought I should start writing myself.” “They asked my opinion on the Latino content,” she recalls. The show’s producers asked Manzano to come up with issues and stories that reflected her culture. “People demanded to see Latinos on the show,” she says.
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