Fran Brill Presentation Report

dwmckim

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This weekend i got a special treat to meet one of my all time fave Muppet performers, Fran Brill. She's doing presentations about her life as a Muppeteer and came to Arizona to do several at various libraries and one that was done in conjunction with the touring "Jim Henson's Fantastic World" Smithsonian exhibit which is in AZ for a few months.

Both this presentation and the exhibit is in Mesa where i'm in more NW Phoenix. It so happens that one of my jobs closed its Phoenix offices this last year forcing me to transfer to its Mesa location this last year so i was already in the area when i got off work...i had a couple hours to spare though, so i set off early to make sure i could nail down specifically were it would be at (there had been some changes in announced location) and be sure i could get good parking etc ahead of time instead of scrambling last minute and being late...it just so happened that in doing so, i had pulled up in the same parking lot where Fran herself and her crew were unloading...they no doubt caught wind of my overjoyed expression! They also were a little unsure of where they were supposed to be so i ended up looking along with them...aside from mutually trying to find the spot, i didn't engage in a lot of conversation of gushing, as i didn't want to come off to much as a freakish fan boy (sometimes meeting a fan in a parking lot can be unsettling) at that point (i was already in a Muppet t shirt, had Kermit hanging from my rear view mirror and had Muppet music on my car stereo). Finally we discovered where it would be so they went to prepare and i was off to get breakfast.

I don't know her schedule for other presentations, but if she's in your area, definately go to see this! She talks about her history as a Muppeteer in between video clips of her work (and towards the end of the show brings out Zoe to say hi). The really cool thing was that all week i had been thinking of what some of my all time fave Fran performances have been - and many of them just happened to be in her presentation...the recent Sesame "Meal or No Meal" sketch, the Singing in the Rain bit with Grover and Prairie, an example of Prairie's pageants (the tooth - though my personal faves are flower and four seasons) and though it wasn't in the clips, she also mentioned on her own about her bits as Merlin's assistant in Jim Henson Hour ("ta-daaa")

There were so many things i would have loved to ask her about but again i didn't want to monopolize the Q&A session or take away from others' enjoyment so i held back a lot, but i did ask if she could shed light on the odd "Marylou" character that was on Sesame Street albums in 1977...and she didn't remember anything about it, saying she would have to go back through stuff to try and remember why they had her play someone on these records with that name instead of Betty Lou or Prairie Dawn. One thing someone else asked about which had been on my mind was confirmation of why aside from some musical numbers, she wasn't a part of The Muppet Show despite being the main female Muppeteer at that time...since she also had a successful career outside of the Muppets (which Jim had long been supportive of since he hired her), she didn't want to be locked in to relocating overseas and having to put everything else on the side (she did later say that even though she does still enjoy many other projects these days as an actress, voice over artist and commercials, she is 100% devoted to her Muppet work on Sesame and is determined to be there to play Zoe and Prairie for as long as she can).

I had a chance afterward to have my picture taken with Fran and Zoe, get her autograph and tell her how much i've long been a fan of not only the Muppets but of her specifically and thank her for all her wonderful performances throughout the years. I just wish that i could have had more opportunity to hear her talk about her non-Muppet career (she touches on it a little in the presentation of course but the whole focus is on "Life as a Muppeteer" so this was an area that wasn't touched on as much but maybe someday, there will be an indepth interview somewhere where she looks back more on her "other" career. Would have especially liked to hear more of her time as a leading soap actress.

But all in all a wonderful afternoon. Dave Goelz is here at month's end (have my ticket but don't have full confirmation yet that i have that evening off from work as requested so crossing my fingers!) Also got to take a special tour of the museum exhibit the week prior which was guided by Karen Falk (who was also a privelage and honor to finally meet!)
 

D'Snowth

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Hey, awesome! I hope she comes to my town, I'd like to see her presentation!
 

MrsPepper

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Wow, thanks for the review. It sounds like she is really nice and tried to answer your questions as best she could. Lucky you!
 

Fragglemuppet

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Wow, that's awesome! I met Fran and got a picture with her, Zoe, Kevin and Elmo last August. Sorry if I mentioned that before, lol!

D.W., what soap was she in? I don't watch them, but I might, (hypothetically, since I don't know if you can get reruns of soaps), just to see her!
:wink: Good luck on getting to see Dave! And yeah, isn't Karen Falk great?
 

dwmckim

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She's mostly known for her role on the short-lived NBC soap "How To Survive a Marriage" (1974-1975) though she's also had roles on Edge of Night, Guiding Light, and All My Children (the only one i've seen where she played a Betty Ford style counselor).

Will probably be a while before i have the photo available to show anyone since it's at the beginning of a roll of film and i don't take a lot of pictures so who knows when i'll be able to develop it (plus i don't have a scanner or anything like that)

...some other tidbits that i ran out of time to write when i typed my original post...

These days whenever there's a role for a Muppet worker like a mailperson or repair person, it will typically be made a female Muppet, not only to make up for the years of underrepresentation but also to give the growing field of female Muppeteers on the show more screentime.

It was Fran's idea for Zoe to have her ballet tutu as a regular outfit (something i had wondered about back when they made that change). They had done a script about how Zoe was totally enthralled with dancing and Fran loved how Zoe looked in the tutu and begged the producers to make it a permanent costume choice as it further established her personality and passion, something that was very unique to her.

(my own opinion here, not Fran's:smile: I wasn't that crazy about it when they first started doing it since it looked kind of odd...esp the coloring, i didn't think the pink looked that great with Zoe's orange and the whole thing ended up looking more like pyjamas. They eventually got the coloring better though and now i think it looks fine. I actually think Zoe's one of the few Sesame Muppets that looks at her best right now (though i also looked the first one too). The puppet looks great (esp in person - lots of incredible detail and coloring) and the eye focus is finally decent again (there was a time a few years back where the eye positioning was horrible and really took away from the overall look).

She also showed a lot of footage of the preparation and shooting of the dance segment for the Zoe's Dance Moves video - this took an incredible amount of work on the part of the puppeteers for Zoe and Elmo! She kept remarking she had no idea what she was getting into!

On the dvd menu for her video clips, there was a segment on "Dog City" but she must have ran out of time since she didn't show anything from that section.

Upon answering a question about female Muppeteers, she realized in the course of answering the question that how it's interesting that how a lot of the female Muppeteers actually have training or other careers as actors, but the men tend to be more strict puppeteers with the exception of Jerry Nelson.
 

froggiegirl18

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do you know the link to find out where the performers will be next? Hopefully I didn't miss them coming to Atlanta.
 

staceyrebecca

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My sob story:
so I'm doing a series of puppetry workshops for teens for the Maricopa County Library system...I go to look up the address for the Anthem Library (this was on Monday) on google. The second entry is "Meet a Muppeteer" Whaaa?

I read...
Fran Brill....Friday....Which Friday...? When? I must know!

It was 3 days prior.
Sad me.

I am, however signed up to meet & greet with Dave Goelz at the end of January. *sigh* yay.
 
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