Two actors on PBS’ long running children’s show Sesame Street are in the news this week.

FOX News reports that Alison Bartlett, who has played Gina on the show for the past 18 years, is also playing a part in HBO’s The Sopranos. “Even in a profession with vertigo-inducing character switches, Bartlett’s feat – simultaneously performing on television’s most violent show and probably its most gentle – is noteworthy”. Actor Steve Buscemi joked after filming an intimate scene with a semi-nude Bartlett that “Everybody’s going to hate me! I’m bedding down Gina!” While Sesame Workshop (formally Children’s Television Workshop), the company that produces Sesame Street, has rules about what kinds of work its performers can take on outside the show, executive producer Lewis Bernstein said he trusted Bartlett to do what’s right.

Philadephia’s local NBC affiliate NBC10 reports that Villanova University seniors are upset that Caroll Spinney, who has portrayed Big Bird on Sesame Street for over 30 years, has been chosen as this year’s commencement speaker. One student said that there are “other people who also embody truth and loyalty and love and other values of the university without also being iconic to the pre-school class”. University president the Reverend Edmund Dobbin called Spinney a “world-class educator”, and other school officials add that Spinney’s new book, called The Wisdom of Big Bird “has a positive message for students”. Spinney will also receive an honorary degree from the university.