“…Can you tell me how to get,
How to get to Sesame Street?...”
For a young Megan Piphus Baptist, the theme song of the decades-old children’s educational show marked the entry into a world of imagination.
And now, in a world where many things are possible, Piphus Baptist has been part of the fabled street since 2020, where she plays Gabrielle, who she describes as “a 6-year-old Black girl muppet who loves to sing, dance and loves her community.”
Piphus Baptist’s interest in puppetry began when she was 10, after a teacher at Vacation Bible School got a group of kids together to start a puppet ministry.
Piphus Baptist, 33, shared some of her story during a stop at the West Palm Beach Marriott on Sept. 16 when she spoke at the annual Mayors Luncheon
hosted by the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County and the Palm Beach County League of Cities to reveal the selection for the annual Read for the Record event.
Her first book, “Brave like a Lion, How a Puppeteer Found her Voice” is the selection for the 21st event, which will be held on Feb. 25.
Jumpstart Kids: Read for the Record draws millions of participants each year. In Palm Beach County, the Literacy Coalition coordinates the event which pits municipalities in a friendly competition to see which can read to the most kids.
Piphus Baptist, a native of Cincinnati — whose parents Marsha and Freddie Piphus Jr. still live in the city — said the exposure at VBS inspired her to learn more about puppetry and ventriloquism.
She got tapes from the library on how to perform puppetry and ventriloquism and “within a couple weeks was performing for my classmates and other schools and churches,” she said in an interview after the luncheon.
Yes, she got paid, and that was when “I stopped getting an allowance,” she said, laughing at the memory.
Her passion for puppetry never wavered even as she attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where she majored in economics, minored in music and got a master’s in finance.
Fun fact: The puppeteer said she tapped into these specialties when she worked on a financial literacy series for children with University of Cincinnati in 2019 and “used songs and puppetry to bring the message to life.”
She won four Emmy awards for the series, according to her website.
Piphus Baptist’s road to “Sesame Street” got a jumpstart when she became part of their mentoring program in 2020. There she learned muppet-style puppetry, which was a different style from what she had been doing, she said. She eventually became the first full-time Black female puppeteer on the show.
“Working on ‘Sesame Street’ is like walking into your childhood,” she said, because you interact with all the familiar elements — the communal front stoop, Oscar the Grouch’s garbage can, Mr. Snuffleupagus.
She enjoys seeing the reactions of people coming to the set and recalled the day in 2022 when then-first lady Jill Biden came to set and watching the Secret Service agents who “couldn’t hold back their smiles” as they walked the street.
One of Piphus Baptist’s main puppets outside of “Sesame Street” is one she’s had since her teen years. She was working in daycare centers, schools and churches and needed a character with whom her audience could relate. Thus was born Baby Junebug, so named by her mother because “everybody has a cousin named Junebug,” Piphus Baptist said.
Her other puppets include Rev. Peppers, who misquotes the Bible.
Piphus Baptist lives in Nashville, where she and her husband, Sir the Baptist, have a blended family of five children.
She recalled that for a long time the children didn’t believe she really worked on Sesame Street. It was only when she took them to the set that they realized she wasn't joking.
Piphus Baptist’s career recently took another turn with the announcement of the “Megan and Cupcake Ready for Preschool” series that will debut this fall on Disney.
She “stars alongside her irresistibly huggable new sidekick, Cupcake, to serve up big preschool concepts in bite-sized, giggle-filled lessons,” a release from Disney said. Shorts from the series are currently airing on the Disney Jr. YouTube channel.
Puppeteer adds children's book author to resume
Piphus Baptist said she’s always wanted to write a children’s book because she loves how imaginative those books are. She is such a fan that “I read children’s books without my kids!”
During her visit to Palm Beach County, she also read her book to children at the Literacy Coalition’s headquarters in Boynton Beach.
“Brave like a Lion” tells the story of a shy little girl who is able to find her voice.
“I thought it was important for my first book to be about my story,” Piphus Baptist said, noting that it speaks to kids being in any circumstance they need to navigate.
Piphus Baptist said she hopes that children who read the book “would be inspired to find the thing that makes them come alive and to find ways to learn more about that thing. Whether it’s a book or a teacher or a library.”
Carol Rose is the former executive editor of the Palm Beach Daily News and serves on the board of the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Sesame Street puppeteer comes to Palm Beach County to share her story
