Meet Muppeteer Fran Brill and Sesame Street's Zoe next Sunday

The Orange County Regional History Center with IBEX Puppetry and the Orlando Puppet Festival will present a Sunday brunch event from 10 a.m. to noon next weekend with Fran Brill, principal puppeteer of Prairie Dawn and Zoe from Sesame Street. Tickets are available through Thursday.

Brill is an actress and puppeteer and was the first female Muppet performer hired by Jim Henson on Sesame Street. Brill will answer the “how’d they do that” questions you’ve always wanted to ask, give a peek behind the scenes of Sesame Street, and tell what it was like to work with Jim Henson. Using video clips, Brill will tell how she broke into the “boys club,” and how she develops characters like Prairie Dawn and Zoe. Zoe will make a special appearance and a question and answer session and photograph signing will follow the presentation.

Brill created many loveable Muppets and has many film and television credits including Saturday Night Live, The Jim Henson Hour, The Muppet Show, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, and Men in Black. As an actress, Brill has appeared in the films What About Bob?, Midnight Run, and Being There. Her television credits include All My Children, How to Survive a Marriage (Afternoon TV Best Actress Award), Spenser: For Hire, Third Watch, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Law and Order, and others. Brill also has numerous stage, commercial, and cartoon voice credits. She currently serves as secretary on the board of the Jim Henson Legacy.

The Orange County Regional History Center has partnered with IBEX Puppetry to present this special event in conjunction with the Fourth Annual Orlando Puppet Festival, Nov. 7 through 9 and the acclaimed Smithsonian exhibition Jim Henson’s Fantastic World, coming to the History Center Feb. 6 through May 3, 2009.

The Orange County Regional History Center, housed in a historic five-story 1927 county courthouse in downtown Orlando, showcases the vast collections of the Historical Society of Central Florida. The museum features exhibitions that take visitors on a 12,000 year journey through the region’s transition from Indian settlement to small town surrounded by citrus groves and cattle ranches to today’s tourist-centric community, as well as presents nationally important, limited-run exhibitions.

Tickets for this event cost $20 for Members of the Historical Society of Central Florida and $25 non-members. Call (407) 836-6751 to R.S.V.P. by Thursday. The presentation is recommended for adults and children ages 13 and up.

For more information visit www.thehistorycenter.org or call (407) 836-8500.