TV Talk: PBS Kids’ ‘Alma’s Way’ brings ‘Sesame Street’ actress back to her start in Pittsburgh

For former “Sesame Street” actress and writer Sonia Manzano, creating a new PBS Kids show, the animated “Alma’s Way” (8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. weekdays beginning Oct. 4, WQED-TV), brings her full circle to where her career began.

While a student at Carnegie Mellon University in the late 1960s, Manzano got her first glimpse of “Sesame Street.”

“I walked into the Skibo student union and I saw ‘Sesame Street’ on a television set and I just flipped,” Manzano, 71, said in a recent phone interview from her Manhattan home. “I thought it taught lip-reading or something the way they were deliberately reciting the alphabet. That’s where it started for me and ‘Sesame Street.’”

Manzano performed in a pre-Broadway production of “Godspell” at CMU. The musical was conceived in 1970 as a CMU Master’s thesis project by John-Michael Tebelak.

“That’s something Pittsburgh should be very proud of, that that started at Carnegie Mellon,” Manzano said. “(CMU grad) Stephen Schwartz ended up writing the music but it was just a show in the drama department in that black box theater. … Now there (are) all these fabulous musical stars that come out of Carnegie Mellon but musicals were totally frowned upon by the drama department in those days. Everything was Pirandello, Chekhov, Shakespeare, Arthur Miller. Television was poo-pooed and musical theater was poo-pooed.”

When “Godspell” moved to New York, Manzano went with it. She expected to return to Pittsburgh to finish her degree but never did. She joined “Sesame Street” in 1971 playing Maria, filming the show during the day and performing in “Godspell” at night.

Manzano became a writer on “Sesame Street” while still playing Maria, a role she announced she was leaving in 2015.

Not long after PBS Kids head of content Linda Simensky asked Manzano to create a series about a Latin family. Manzano made it a Puerto Rican family in the Bronx, inspired by her own upbringing, with a focus on thinking.

“I was struck by the fact that I met a lot of kids who were very young and were already turned off to school and learning because they thought of schools as places where they just had to take in a lot of information and memorize and learn things at the same level as their peers and at the same moment as their peers,” she said. “I thought, they should know everybody has a mind and they can lose themselves in their minds and use their minds to solve their own problems.”

Simensky put Manzano together with Pittsburgh-based Fred Rogers Productions with FRP’s Ellen Doherty executive producing.

Manzano met Fred Rogers when he was a guest star on “Sesame Street” in 1981.

“I have a picture with him,” Manzano said. “We were (about) cognitive skills and he was more social-emotional. We were comedy and he wasn’t comedy. … But still it was a fabulous combination for kids to have: 3:30 was ‘Mister Rogers’ and 4 o’clock was ‘Sesame Street.’ It was just the perfect balance. And now, look at us, we’re together again.”

So far Manzano has written three scripts for “Alma’s Way,” aimed at children ages 4-6 and featuring a theme song by Lin-Manuel Miranda (“Hamilton”) and Bill Sherman. Jorge Aguirre (“Blue’s Clues You”) is the head writer of “Alma’s Way,” which follows the daily life of 6-year-old Alma Rivera, who lives in the Bronx with her immediate and extended family, including cousin Eddie Mambo, who lives next door.

The “Alma’s Way” Pittsburgh ties don’t end with Manzano. Doherty notes Roberta Schomburg, former associate dean and professor of early childhood in the school of education at Carlow University, serves as curriculum adviser on “Alma’s Way,” as she also does for FRP’s “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” and “Donkey Hodie.”

Dr. Mary Louise Russell, a pediatric rehabilitation physician-turned-minister at Third Presbyterian, Shadyside, serves as medical adviser on the series, particularly in its portrayal of Alma’s cousin, Eddie, who has cerebral palsy (Pittsburgh doctors Jose Ramirez-Del Toro and Angela Garcia also consulted on the pilot episode). Doherty said the doctors wrote up a two-page medical chart for the character.

“Mary Louise reviews scripts and animatics and sometimes animation to look at what is going on with Eddie in that circumstance,” Doherty said, demonstrating the care put into the character’s presentation. “How is the pace of his walking? Would he be using crutches in this scene? One of the things we learned is if it’s a short distance around the home, he probably wouldn’t use his crutches. If it’s longer distances, then he would. If it’s a scene where the kids are standing, he might need to take break and sit.”

Doherty said staff at the show’s Canadian animation production company, Pipeline Studios, requested to make Alma’s street address 143, a tribute to Fred Rogers, who always liked that number as representative of the number of letters in each word in the phrase “I love you.”

Some have compared the 6 subway train on “Alma’s Way” to Trolley in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” Doherty said. And Alma’s Granny Isa, a flight attendant voiced by Manzano, lives in Pittsburgh, although her home base goes unmentioned in the show’s first season.

IATSE strike looming?

On Monday IATSE, a union representing behind-the-scenes workers in the entertainment industry, authorized a strike vote that, if a strike is called, would shut down TV and film production nationwide. The move comes after the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers decline to respond to the union’s latest contract offer. Negotiations have been ongoing for several months as IATSE seeks more turnaround times between production days.

Results of the strike vote are expected Oct. 4. A strike would shut down local production of “Rustin,” which is set to begin filming Tuesday, “A League of Their Own” and “Sprung.”

Channel surfing

Former WTAE-TV reporter David Kaplan is now working alongside KDKA-TV alum Jim Lokay and former WPXI-TV reporter Steve Chenevey at WTTG-TV, the Fox affiliate in Washington, D.C. … The first five episodes of season two of “The World According to Jeff Goldblum,” hosted by the West Homestead native, debuts Nov. 12 on Disney+. … A new season of “The Great British Baking Show” debuts Friday on Netflix. … Ratings for CBS’s telecast of the Emmy Awards rose 23% to 7.8 million viewers from last year’s all-time low of 6.4 million viewers. … ViacomCBS is offering a bundle that includes Paramount+ and Showtime ($10 per month with ads on Paramount+; $13 monthly without ads).