Jennifer Barnhart (Zoe,Granny Bird, Maggie Cadabby)
Jennifer Barnhart first joined Sesame Street in Season 32. Since Season 46, she has been performing Zoe, originated by the legendary Fran Brill.
Jennifer Barnhart first joined Sesame Street in Season 32. Since Season 46, she has been performing Zoe.
She also plays Granny Bird, Gladys the Cow, Mama Bear, Frankie the Worm, and Maggie Cadabby, as well as the recurring human role of Charlie’s Mom. In 2021, she received an Emmy nomination for her Sesame Street work.
In addition to performing, Barnhart has directed projects for Sesame Workshop including music videos and international PSAs about the importance of vaccinations for kids and families. She also served as Puppet Captain and the performer of Jackie for three seasons of the Sesame Workshop and Apple TV+ Emmy Award-winning series, Helpsters.
Barnhart originated the role of Cleo on the multiple Emmy Award-winning show Between the Lions, and she created the role of shy, tech-savvy Riley for Julie’s Greenroom, a Netflix co-production with Julie Andrews and The Jim Henson Company. She has performed on a host of other children’s television programs, including Johnny and the Sprites, Bear in the Big Blue House, Oobi, The Book of Pooh, and Lomax: The Hound of Music. She has also appeared on Last Week Tonight: with John Oliver and Saturday Night Live.
Other Jim Henson Company-related credits include a stint with the live theatrical improv show Puppet Up! at the Union Square Theatre, and a dual human/puppeteer role as Ma Squirrel/Scatfish in the stage musical Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas at Goodspeed Opera House. For Disney’s The Muppets Studio, she performed in the ensemble for the recent Muppet Show Special with Sabrina Carpenter.
She was part of the Original Broadway Company (Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Ensemble and Puppetry) of the Tony Award-winning musical Avenue Q, and she remained with the show for its entire six-year run on Broadway, and she has puppet-coached and directed various productions of it regionally and at universities around the country.
She finds working with students in educational settings to be particularly rewarding, and she has been a coach, guest artist and lecturer at several institutions and conferences, and she taught as an adjunct professor at Wagner College. Barnhart has lent her voice to documentaries, children’s audiobooks, and interactive educational apps, including work for Scholastic, Teachley, Tiggly, and Success for All. She has also narrated YA audiobooks for Penguin Random House.
She holds a BFA in Acting with a Concentration in Puppet Arts from the University of Connecticut, where she was once named one of their Outstanding 40 Under 40 Alumni.
