Frankie Cordero: Puppeteer, Director & Storyboard Artist
- Jun 9
- 3 min read
Frankie Cordero has built and performed puppet characters for Sesame Street, The Muppets, and projects with Fred Rogers Productions, often directing and storyboarding the work before it reaches the camera. His job lives in the physical construction of performance, where choices about movement, gaze, and limitation quietly determine whether a character feels real once it’s on screen. We talked about physical choice, legacy constraints, and how early decisions shape what an audience responds to without knowing why.
When you’re building a puppet performance, what’s the first physical choice you lock in that quietly determines everything the audience ends up feeling?
When creating a puppet character, some of the first choices I make may seem surface level, like its walk or posture, but those decisions feed directly into the deeper part of the performance. If it’s a verbal character, I often begin with the character’s unique laugh and find the voice from there.
On shows with deep history like Sesame Street or The Muppets, what’s the line you won’t cross that keeps the work from turning into imitation?
I’ve absolutely been inspired by existing Muppet characters and their voices while creating my own, but my goal is always to pull from facets of myself and people I know. That helps me avoid direct imitation and makes sure the character feels authentic.
In rehearsal, when a puppet is technically right but emotionally flat, what’s the quickest adjustment you make to fix it?
Whether the emotional flatness comes from a note from the director or a feeling from within, just as in human theater, the puppeteer needs to reach deeper to access the character’s intention and capture any actions and reactions based on the conflict at hand or with the scene partner.
When you’re both performing and directing, what choice do you make to protect the puppet’s point of view when creative conversations start drifting into adult logic instead of the character’s reality?
As a performer, my intention is always to stay true to the character, to think and react as they would in every given situation. Locking into this mindset protects the puppet character's core. When working through stages of production where adult logic is guiding conversations around curriculum or otherwise, I make sure to keep a child's mindset top and center; as viewers, children are more likely to connect when they see these characters mirroring their world of understanding.
When a moment works and people laugh or feel something without knowing why, what choice earlier in the process usually made that possible?
Working through the puppet’s physical limitations and offering the audience substitutions in their place contributes to a more honest performance. Most puppets on television don’t blink or shift their eyes side to side, but subtle movement throughout the rest of the body can fill in those gaps. Giving a character a specific physicality and a sense of history through movement is what solidifies that connection with the viewer.
When Frankie builds a character, the deciding work is finished long before an audience ever sees it. Walk, posture, and physical limits set the boundaries the performance has to honor. Once those are in place, emotion follows naturally. What looks effortless on screen is the result of decisions the viewer never notices.
Learn more about Frankie at:
• IMDb
