Fran Brill (CFA’68), one of Sesame Street’s first female Muppeteers, holds two of the characters she created: monster Zoe and the little girl Prairie Dawn. Photo by John Barrett

TV & Film

BU Alum Is “a Muppet Legend”

Fran Brill, who spent more than 40 years “sweepin’ the clouds away” as a Sesame Street Muppeteer, receives a Lifetime Achievement Award

Fran Brill’s early career hit a bump before it even had a chance to take off. A classically trained actor, Brill (CFA’68) moved to New York City after graduation when the play she was in transferred to Broadway—only for it to close after 41 performances.

Brill remembers sitting on the couch one day, feeling down. To lift her spirits, she started watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and then, for laughs, Sesame Street, which premiered in 1969. Not long after, in a twist of fate, she happened to notice an ad in the acting trade paper Backstage: Muppets creator Jim Henson was seeking puppeteers for an upcoming Christmas special. Sunny day!

“I thought, gee, I can do voices and accents and characters, maybe Sesame Street will hire me to do voices—never realizing that the puppeteers did their own voices,” says Brill. Back then, the program was still a small operation. “I picked up the phone and got to Jim Henson right away,” she says. “I said, ‘Hi, I’m an actress, I’ve just come to New York.’”

Henson invited her to meet with him and his collaborator, Frank Oz (the voice of characters Miss Piggy and Yoda). Brill didn’t expect to audition on the spot, but when she arrived, she saw a big box full of puppets. Without hesitation, she stuck her hand in, pulled out a puppet, and began performing. 

Henson appreciated that Brill was an actor. “He didn’t want just a puppeteer,” she says. “He wanted somebody who could create characters.” 

He hired her for Sesame Street’s second season. One of the show’s first female Muppeteers, she went on to create iconic characters, such as Prairie Dawn and Zoe—two energetic young girls, one a human and the other an orange, furry monster. 

Brill’s contributions helped cement Sesame Street as a pillar of American children’s television, first on PBS and later on HBO and Netflix. She was honored for her work last year, receiving the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award at the third annual Children’s & Family Emmy Awards. 

“She is a Muppet legend,” said Stephanie D’Abruzzo, who took over the character of Prairie Dawn when Brill retired in 2014, at the event. “Prairie Dawn was supposed to be this quintessential little girl, and Fran turned her into so much more.” 

Prairie Dawn was originally designed to be an “anything muppet”—essentially an “extra” in the background. 

“She was very, very sweet, and a little breathy, like Marilyn Monroe,” Brill says, mimicking Prairie Dawn’s voice. “But I’m a rather strong person, so over the years, she got very sure of herself, and she went from being a sweet little girl to wanting to run the network, because she produced all those plays for the boys.” 

For Sesame Street’s 25th season, in 1993, Brill was tasked with creating a character that would resonate with the show’s female audience. She developed Zoe, a three-year-old orange “monster,” to be Elmo’s best friend. 

Throughout her Sesame Street run, Brill performed many other beloved characters, including the five-year-old HIV-positive Muppet Kami (created for the South African version of Sesame Street), Little Bird, Mrs. Crustworthy, Elmo’s mom, Little Bo Peep, and the Countess.

She also appeared in films like What About Bob? TV shows like Law & Order, and the animated Disney cartoon Doug. Brill often juggled three careers—Sesame Street, commercial work, and acting. “I was like the guy in the circus with the three plates spinning,” she says with a laugh. 

Although Brill retired in 2014, she still remains deeply invested in the future  of Sesame Street, the longest running children’s show in the country. During her acceptance speech at the Children’s & Family Emmy Awards, she noted how the program’s core mission—teaching children to be smarter, stronger, and kinder—is more relevant today than ever. 

When asked about that mission: “You should really go through life setting a good example for people, being a good person,” she says. “I wasn’t raised to be mean, hateful, or jealous, and that was certainly not the way Jim Henson was. He had an enormous effect on me as a person. I really try to emulate him because he just treated everybody the same, from the garbage guy to the people he worked with. He saw that we were all human beings.”