Jennifer Barnhart is a veteran puppeteer who joined Sesame Street in Season 32. She eventually inherited the roles of Zoe, Gladys the Cow,  Granny Bird and Mama Bear.  She also plays Maggie Cadabby and starting with Season 50 she joined the human cast as Charlie’s Mom. She received a Daytime Emmy nomination in 2021 for her work on the show.

 

Barnhart, who received her BFA in puppetry from The University of Connecticut's Puppet Arts Program, began her puppetry career working on the Animal Planet series Once Upon a Tree and subsequently played Cleo Lion on Between the Lions.  Other television credits include the tech-savvy Riley on Julie’s Green Room (starring Julie Andrews) as well as Lomax: The Hound of Music, and most recently, Helpsters for Apple+ TV. As a ‘human’, she has appeared on Law and Order: SVU  and House of Cards.

 

Barnhart was the longest-running member of the Original Broadway Cast of the Tony Award-winning musical Avenue Q, portraying her original roles of Mrs. Thistletwat and The Bad Idea Bear, and understudying the roles of Kate Monster and Lucy T. Slut, for the show's entire six-year Broadway run. She briefly returned to her former roles in an Off-Broadway production of Avenue Q in 2013 and has consulted for regional productions of the show. 

 

For the 2009/2010 Goodspeed production of Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, Barnhart assumed the role of Madame Squirrel.  Other regional theatre credits include Goneril in King Lear and Lady M in Macbeth with Alabama Shakespeare Festival.