By Brian Landa
@BrianLandaLawyer
The new documentary Street Smart: Lessons From a TV Icon, from director Ernie Bustamante, was an opening night screening for The 2025 Oak Cliff Film Festival (OCFF) at the historic Texas Theatre, best known universally as the place where Lee Harvey Oswald was captured on November 22, 1963. It is now designated as a federal historic landmark. But locals know it also hosts some of the best film festivals and events in the area. And OCFF is a major jewel in that crown.
Street Smart explores the career of Sonia Manzano, who played Maria on “Sesame Street” for decades starting in 1971. Sesame Street premiered in late 1969, at almost the exact same time I did, so it’s definitely ingrained in me. As are the Muppets. Generation X is very much the “Sesame Street” and Muppet generation. Sonia, who was continuously on the show until 2015, was educated at The New York High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan, which is best known from the movie and TV show Fame.
Sonia was in the original workshop cast of Godspell. The present A-listers launched from a legendary Toronto production of Godspell in 1972 were so numerous that there’s going to be a documentary just about that soon. And Sonia was there from even before the beginning. Steven Schwartz, best known now for Wicked, was still writing the music for Godspell at the time. An urban telling of the last days of Jesus as man, the movie version was filmed all over New York City. The city is a character. And the city is very much a part of who Sonia is to the core.
Director Bustamante, who was present for live Q&A, said that Schwartz was readily available to participate in interview segments, and he even plays a bit of piano onscreen without any prompting. It’s a fine genuine moment in a film about a very real person, even though she’s technically fictional much of the time.
And from that seminal early production of Godspell, a role where she got to clown around and sing and dance, she was cast on “Sesame Street.” The Hispanic representation was minimal (if it was there at all at the time) and such a simple casting choice was also a monumental moment for televised diversity.
Sonia was so much Maria over the years that people truly believed she was Maria. Her interactions with Oscar the Grouch over the decades are the ones she feels most special about. He may be a grump of the highest order, but deep down, and sometimes even on the surface occasionally, he has heart. She almost had a closer relationship with Oscar than she did with onscreen husband Luis. Fun fact: Longtime Muppet master Carol Spinney voiced and acted both as Big Bird and Oscar. I was previously unaware he was also Oscar because it’s been a while since I’ve done a deep dive on “Sesame Street” lore.
Sonia went on to create a well-received and award-winning animated public television series about a Hispanic young girl, “Alma’s Way.” OCFF seems to return to the public television world often. There was a documentary about the LeVar Burton show “Reading Rainbow” a few years back that opened OCFF, Butterfly in the Sky, which still has not gotten distribution as far as I know. I hope that one does and this one does. They are fantastic companion pieces.
“Sesame Street” changes lives. And it’s been under a lot of fire lately. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting just announced it is shutting down due to the current political climate and major loss of federal funding. A documentary like this can level set how public media is good for humanity. Laughter and tears as the “Sesame Street” characters, human and Muppet, experience the highs of joy and the lows of loss and death. The totality of the human experience. These fictional characters became our family, especially Maria.
A fellow Sonia, who is perhaps the most important Sonia we know at the moment, stops by to chat because they are very close. United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor weighs in during some talking head interviews about the impact of Maria and other diverse cast members. “Sesame Street” changes the world.
Funding cuts to NPR are much more impactful in a negative way than people think. And Sesame Workshop is certainly about making the world a better place. Sonia really was Maria, but eventually, she did have to move on. Fortunately, both Sonias are still with us, working to change the world for the better.
