Leslie Carrara-Rudolph (Abby Cadabby)
Leslie Carrara-Rudolph is a multi-faceted performer who has been nominated for five Emmy Awards for her work on Sesame Street as Abby Cadabby.
Leslie Carrara-Rudolph is a multi-faceted performer who has been nominated for five Emmy Awards for her work on Sesame Street as Abby Cadabby.
Carrara-Rudolph has a B.A. in Child Development through the Arts from San Francisco State University. She performs the new Muppet, Penny Waxman, a series regular, in the new Disney+ series, The Muppets Mayhem. Carrara-Rudolph’s additional television work spans a variety of acclaimed children’s television programs including Disney’s Johnny & the Sprites (Ginger Sprite), Nickelodeon’s Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss (Morton, Little Cat A) and hit cartoon series T.U.F.F. Puppy (Peg Puppy), The Learning Channel’s Animal Jam (Edi), The Electric Company (Wolf Man, Mummy, Bat, Aunt Hildegard), Life in Pieces (Stuffed Monkey), ABC’s Muppets Tonight, the animated PBS series Nature Cat (various), and Splash and Bubbles (Bubbles, Puffy Flo), for which she received an ANNIE Award for voice acting. She does background “walla” for The Simpsons and is the official voice match for Disney’s character Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove. She has appeared in several outreach videos for Sesame Workshop, including as Prairie Dawn’s mother in Sesame Beginnings and as Jesse in “When Families Grieve” for Sesame Street for Military Families. She performs Lily and Rose the Dog for Sesame Street in Communities initiatives around family homelessness and autism. Carrara-Rudolph also performs Tango, Elmo’s puppy, and Mecha Abby in the new animated spinoff series Sesame Street Mecha Builders. She will soon be performing a brand new character on an up-and-coming Muppet series for Disney+. Movie credits include Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Men in Black II, and The Muppets. Some of Carrara-Rudolph’s stage credits include Sweeney Todd (Beggar Woman), Little Shop of Horrors (Audrey), Parallel Lives, and The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.
As a comedian, she performed stand-up at Caroline’s Comedy Club in New York and performed with the Jim Henson puppet improv group at the Aspen Comedy Festival, the Australian Comedy Festival, and Off-Broadway at the Union Square Theater. She designed, created, and starred in an original, live, interactive musical stage show for the Walt Disney Company called The Wahoo Wagon, which was performed at Hollywood’s El Capitan Theater. Carrara-Rudolph is also an accomplished writer and filmmaker. She wrote an original musical called Wake up Your Weird, designed to fire up the imaginations of the young and young at heart. The show received the 2009 Jim Henson Foundation Grant and an UNIMA Citation of Excellence (under the name Entertaining a Thought). She also recently wrote for an educational PBS series called Reading Buddies. Two of her short films, Milano Lolly and Lolly’s Candy Dance, were featured in Heather Henson’s “Hand Made Puppet Dreams” series, and Milano Lolly also made it into the New York Food Film Festival.
She has been the guest artist twice at the Ojai Playwrights conference and teaches character development at the O’Neill National Puppetry Conference. She was the 2011 guest artist at the O’Neill Theater. Carrara-Rudolph currently tours with her stage show The Oz in You, which she performed for Google as guest speaker. Her recent cabarets, What Just Happened? and Moonlight Madness, have been nominated for Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs (MAC) Awards. Both can still be seen in New York. She has also been recognized with a residency at The Laurie Beechman Theater, where she performs a monthly show called Bizarre Brunch. Beyond cabaret and radio, Carrara-Rudolph hosts the podcast Ear Bud, the only female-driven intergenerational podcast for families. NPR recently shouted out the show and played one of their episodes. Her original pieces often include beloved sidekicks Lolly Lardpop and Granny Dot.
She is part of the Kids Comic Con team (KCC) founded to help kids celebrate their creative talents. You can listen to Carrara-Rudolph’s characters on iTunes in a show she co-created with Jamie Donmoyer called “Lolly’s Radio Playdate,” and see her pipe cleaner creations on YouTube channel, “Lolly’s Twisted Tales.” In her spare time, Carrara-Rudolph illustrates children’s books, teaches workshops, and creates her own brand of magic and joy. She is also launching a production company called “Humor With A Heart” with her creative partner. You can find out more about Carrara-Rudolph at www.lesliecarrararudolph.com.
