TV Talk: McMurray native helps bring ‘Helpsters’ alive on Apple TV+
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Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.
Western Pennsylvania native Stephanie D’Abruzzo has operated puppets on Broadway (“Avenue Q”) and in children’s programming (“Sesame Street”) and she’s appeared in prime time (“Scrubs”).
She can trace a theme in her latest project, educational puppet program “Helpsters,” back to the public school arts education she was raised on.
“Even if you don’t go into the arts, having that arts education is so important,” said D’Abruzzo, who grew up in McMurray and graduated from Peters Township High School in 1989. “It taught me to show up on time, for me to finish the job at hand. It taught me if I didn’t feel comfortable in a role, hey, you’re not going to quit. My orchestra teacher wouldn’t let me quit playing the violin and I’m kind of glad she didn’t. I was never going to be a great violinist but it taught me how to sight sing. I’m a better musician for it. … And that brings us full circle to ‘Helpsters.’”
Season two of the live-action, music-filled preschool series “Helpsters” begins streaming Friday on Apple TV+. The show, created and written by Tim McKeon (co-creator of Fred Rogers Productions’ “Odd Squad”) for Sesame Workshop, features a human guest star who seeks assistance from a team of problem-solving puppet monsters. (Season two guest stars include Terry Crews, Michael McKean, Gabby Douglas and Michael Ian Black.) D’Abruzzo performs and voices the enthusiastic lead monster, Cody.
“We start by making a plan,” D’Abruzzo said. “Then we figure out what jobs we need to do in that plan. And who will do which jobs in that plan. … And we try not to give up when we encounter mistakes. It’s about teaching kids about perseverance and not giving up meeting that goal. Sometimes plans change, sometimes the problem changes, and you just have to incorporate some flexible thinking into that, which is good for adults and kids.”
Unlike many puppet shows that are shot entirely in a studio, “Helpsters” went out in the world when season one and two were filmed back-to-back in 2019.
“We were in every [New York City] park in existence,” D’Abruzzo said of filming on location in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens. “The downside of being a puppeteer, especially when you’re on location, is you are literally kissing the pavement. However, you cannot deny those characters look amazing outside when theyre hit by natural sunlight.”
D’Abruzzo continues to perform Prairie Dawn and other characters on “Sesame Street” and she’s performing characters and writing episodes of the new Fred Rogers Productions series for PBS Kids, puppet show “Donkey Hodie,” which is in production in Chicago and expected to air next year.
D’Abruzzo said she grew up as “a little ham” and performed in local theater productions.
“I was the first grandchild and legend has it I would stand on the dining room table and sing,” said D’Abruzzo. “I would listen to ‘Sesame Street’ records. I would sing songs from ‘Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.’ … I wanted to perform in some way but then as I got older, that got scary. It’s not something that you do when you grow up in Pittsburgh. You don’t run off and go to the big city, you get a real job. I didn’t know that puppetry was really a career until I went to college (at Northwestern University). Puppetry was a great way for me to play any character I wanted to play without it mattering what I looked like.”
TV writer Rob Owen: rowen@triblive.com or 412-380-8559. Follow @RobOwenTV on Twitter or Facebook.