Sonia Manzano is an American actress, screenwriter, author, speaker and singer-songwriter. She is best known for playing Maria on Sesame Street from 1971 until her departure in 2015. She is also known for providing the voice-over narration in several animated segments in the English version of the Swedish television showFem myror är fler än fyra elefanter.
In her junior year, she came to New York to star in the original production of the off-Broadway show Godspell. Manzano joined the production of Sesame Street in 1971, where she eventually began writing scripts for the series. On June 29, 2015, it was announced that Manzano would be retiring from the show after 44 years. Manzano would, however, later reprise the role of Maria in the 2019 television special Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary Celebration. She has performed on the New York stage, in the critically acclaimed theatre pieces The Vagina Monologues and The Exonerated. She has written for the Peabody Award-winning children's series Little Bill, and has written a parenting column for the Sesame Workshop web site called "Talking Outloud". Her children's book No Dogs Allowed, published by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing in 2004, is one of five books selected by the General Mills initiative "Spoonfuls of Stories". As part of that effort, Manzano is working with General Mills and its nonprofit partner, First Book, to encourage children to read and to help children across the United States gain access to books. The book has been adapted as a stage play. She is also the author of The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano. She has served on the March of Dimes Board; the board of the George Foster Peabody Awards; and the board of a New York City theatrical institution, Symphony Space. She is a member of the board of advisors of the Project Sunshine Book Club. She was featured in the Learning Leaders poster, designed to encourage reading in NYC public schools. In several episodes of the animated Nickelodeon series The Loud House, Manzano provides the voice of Bobby and Ronnie Anne Santiago's grandmother, Rosa Casagrande, a role she reprises in the spinoff The Casagrandes. She also portrays Judge Gloria Pepitone in .
In the 1970s she was in a relationship with film director and producer Michael Winner. Manzano resides in the Upper West Side of Manhattan with her husband Richard Reagan, whom she married in 1986, and their daughter Gabriella. Gabriella played the role of the same name on Sesame Street for two seasons as Luis and Maria's daughter before she decided she did not enjoy acting. Desiree Casado replaced her afterwards.
