Keynote Speaker:

Sonia Manzano

Sonia Manzano has been a presence on Public Television since the 1970’s.  Raised in the South Bronx, she attended the High School of Performing Arts.  A scholarship took her to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and in her junior year, she came to New York to star in the original production of the off-Broadway show, Godspell. 

Within a year Ms. Manzano was cast as “Maria” on Sesame Street.  After ten years as an actress, she began writing scripts for the series and has fifteen Emmy Awards as part of the Sesame Street writing staff.  She also wrote for the Peabody Award winning children’s series, Little Bill, for Nickelodeon and for a short time wrote a parenting column for the Sesame Workshop website called Talking Outloud.

Sonia Manzano has returned to the New York stage starring in The Vagina Monologues and The Exonerated.  

Ms. Manzano has received awards from The Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Washington DC and The Hispanic Heritage Foundation, and she received an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Notre Dame University in 2004.  Closer to home, she was inducted into the Bronx Hall of Fame in 2005.

Sonia Manzano was twice nominated for an Emmy Award as “Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Series.”

Ms. Manzano’s first picture book No Dogs Allowed! was published in April 2004.  General Mills gave away 1.5 million copies of No Dogs Allowed!  in boxes of Cheerios, as part of their Spoonfuls of Reading program.  No Dogs Allowed! was turned into a musical that was presented by the Actor's Playhouse at the Miracle Theater in Coral Gables, Florida on June 2006.

Sonia Manzano’s second book A Box Full Of Kittens was published June 2007.  Currently she is writing a blog for Catalina Magazine and working on a memoir.

Ms. Manzano enjoys traveling the country on the lecture circuit, infusing humor into serious topics.  She lives in New York City with her husband and their daughter. 

For more information on the YWCA Annual Luncheon, please e-mail Heidi Lawson, Community Relations Manager, or call her at (408) 295-4011 ext. 216.