“New York is a character,” Doherty, who is also an executive producer of “Alma’s Way,” added, “which is something that’s said of a lot of shows, but not often said of kids’ shows.”Īlma - the name means “soul” in Spanish - is closely modeled on Manzano, as was the unflappable Maria, whom she played on “Sesame Street” for 44 years, beginning in 1971. Bill Sherman composed the salsa-flavored theme song, while its lyrics and rap segment were written by none other than Miranda himself, whom Manzano enlisted. The show also includes quintessential Bronx sounds, like salsa, bomba and reggaeton. Young Alma Rivera finds her own answers, using what Ellen Doherty, the chief creative officer of Fred Rogers Productions, which produces the series, called the small heroine’s “ think-through moments.” Confronting a problem in each 11-minute story - there are two in every half-hour episode - Alma steps back and considers the alternatives, the perspectives of those involved and what she can do. And somehow I felt that that was part of what ‘Alma’s Way’ was about.” She added that it reminded her of “kids who think that they are stupid because they don’t have the answers. “That line, and it’s such a simple line, was so fraught with meaning,” Manzano recalled. Simensky left the theme up to Manzano, who thought back to her own childhood resourcefulness and to a resonant remark from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway show “Hamilton”: “ I’m not stupid.” “We didn’t have a show about thinking,” said Linda Simensky, head of content for PBS Kids, who, in 2013, urged Manzano to develop a series about a Latino family after discovering the many children’s books she had written.
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