The Creative Life

Sonia Manzano
Saturday, April 30 at 4pm - CANCELED DUE TO ILLNESS

Sonia Manzano is a first-generation American of Latino descent who was raised in the South Bronx where her involvement in the arts was inspired by teachers who encouraged her to audition for the High School of Performing Arts. She was accepted there and began her career as an actress. A scholarship took her to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and, in her junior year, she came to New York to star in the original production of the off-Broadway show Godspell. Within a year, Manzano joined the production of Sesame Street where she eventually began writing scripts for the series. Performances on the New York stage include the critically acclaimed theater pieces The Vagina Monologues, The Exonerated and Love Loss and What I Wore. Movie credits include Deathwish, Follow That Bird and Elmo in Grouchland.

Manzano’s critically acclaimed children’s books include A World Together, No Dogs Allowed!, A Box Full of Kittens and Miracle on 133rd Street. No Dogs Allowed! has been turned into a children’s musical with productions at the Actor’s Playhouse in Coral Gables, Florida and the Atlantic Theater in New York.  Manzano also penned the YA novel The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano and the memoir Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx. Her forthcoming novel, Coming Up Cuban, will be released by Scholastic in August. 

Manzano has won 15 Emmys for writing television scripts.  She has also received awards that include the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Award, Bronx Hall of Fame and Hispanic Heritage Award for Education. Manzano has written for the Peabody Award-winning children’s series Little Bill, a parenting column for the Sesame Workshop web site called “Talking Out Loud” and an animated series for PBS entitled Alma's Way.

On the same day as the Creative Life conversation, Manzano will also perform at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center joining actors Patricia Kalember and Bhavesh Patel in Selected Shorts at 7:30pm.