An Interview With Melissa Llarena

Are you a fan of Sesame Street? I had the opportunity to ask Chris Thomas Hayes, a puppeteer and actor, about what it takes to capture our imagination, along with the imagination of our kids. This episode reveals a lot about what happens behind the scenes of Sesame Street.  Chris walks us through how he gets into character in the field of puppetry and how he approached playing a legacy character that may have even existed when he was a child and watched the show on TV. Listening to Chris, I’m just in awe of the technical sophistication behind what it takes to play our favorite Sesame Street characters including Big Bird, Hoots the Owl, or Ernie. Chris also talks about the way he conveys emotions through a puppet that is made of felt and stitching. In Chris’ words, the characters on Sesame Street were not built out of anger, but they came from love. They were built with the spirit of a child in mind that the more we watch them, the more we forget these are not real entities. So how then is he able to convey an