good evening, everyone. whew. that's really loud. good, everyone. my name is? carla thorsen. i'm the vice president for programs at the commonwealth club. and i want to welcome all to this evening to talk about muppets and moscow bringing sesame street to russian television and into homes in russia in the 1990s. i had the privilege of being in during this time as well. and it was a really heady time. a lot of things seemed possible. and so the fact that sesame street came to russian and to russian families is really interesting and exciting story. so i'm glad you're all here tonight to learn about it. before we get started, i'd like to ask everybody to take a moment and please turn off anything that might be bring play music so that we disturb the program. and i also want to thank everyone for joining us here tonight in person and thank everyone who is also joining us online on tonight watching livestream. we do want to hear from you. so during the program please feel free to write your questions on cards that you'll find on your chairs and if watching online you can also ask questions using the youtube chat and we'll be able to pick up those questions and share them with our moderator tonight. so i'd like to introduce our to wonderful guests and. our first guest is the moderator, lesley dixon. and lesley, actually a member of the commonwealth club and she's also a resident here in the bay area in san francisco proper, a and we're delighted to have her come on stage tonight. the first time. and i want to tell you little bit about her. she's a screenwriter and film producer with a really long list of stream film screenplay credits that you'll all probably recognize it includes things like mrs. doubtfire, the thomas crown affair, hairspray and overboard just name a few. i think i've seen of those. and so leslie is going to moderate tonight and we're delighted to have her do that joining her is our featured guest, nancy natasha rogoff and natasha is an award winning american television producer, filmmaker and journalist who's produced television shows and documentaries in russia ukraine and the former soviet union, cbs, nbc, abc and pbs. so without further ado, please join me in welcoming and natasha to the stage. parliament. everybody hear me? oh yes, you can. hi everybody. i'm going to resort to some notes for my questions when i'm an interview subject that i can blather extra contemporaneously for hours, but not necessarily the moderator. so i'd like to welcome you to the commonwealth club, which today has endangered classy image by, actually asking a hollywood comedy to moderator of complex and very tense geopolitical issues. wish me luck and i'm very humbled to. welcome, natasha. lance rogoff who i happen to know personally to talk about her new book, muppets in moscow unexpected, crazy, true story of making sesame street in russia. and i found this book to be i'm sorry for the superlatives embarrass you, natasha, but it is entertaining, scary in places very darkly. funny, romantic and really uplifting. when it demonstrates the artistry and the resilience, the russian people. and it also gives you a peek behind the curtain, the iron curtain, maybe at a in russian history that is sadly and it's replaced now by authoritarian ism. so the mission and of her parent sesame street company was really very altruistic it was to educate of excuses. our children now russian incursion, cursing, honesty, humor, kindness and of racial tolerance. what could go wrong? okay, so thank you, natasha, for joining us today. and here is my first question. you are student and filmmaker in the eighties in the pre collapse ussr. tell us how that came to be. well, first i want to thank you for that. oh really? introduction. i meant word of it. you know, it's awful when you to read your friend's book and you don't like it. i loved this book honestly. and thanks much to the commonwealth club and for everybody tonight for coming. also when, sesame street tapped me produce the original production of the iconic american show in russia. it was really an unprecedented time and the soviet union had just a few years earlier and this is one seventh of the world's surface so huge massive territory and included central asia ukraine, armenia, georgia. and it was really a period incredible hope, excitement, but pain and humiliation russian because they were a superpower and confusion, i would imagine, about who they are now and what to hold on to and what to let go of. nobody had any idea what the future would bring and, especially for their children? yeah. okay. so when talk about how you became fluent in russia and how you. studied there first because it seems like that you for being the kind of person they have thought about to give this job to. you weren't just some hollywood producer that were dropped cold into this environment. you knew your way around. so you thought i mean, i thought i was the last person that should be doing this production. why? because i had no children's television. oh, there's that. and i. i had spent years in the soviet union previously. so spoke russian, having worked for, you know, television news and, making really serious document. and you fluent, right? i was fluent in russian yeah. and then these two sesame street executives showed up at a screening of documentary which was called russia for sale the rough road to capitalism and i had just come after embedding myself with a fascist communists who want to see the soviet empire fail and they wanted to retain power. and so these muppet guys come up to me and they're like, would you help bring sesame street to russia? and i said, you know, did you guys just watch my film i just, i was completely confused. and then they just said, you, this was a wonderful guy, gary knell, who said, you can't come on, come down to the headquarters. you know, nobody. no, to elmo. well, you didn't did you? so i'd like you to set the stage for us because when you were there before it was the ussr. like you say and and humorless, and here you are about to bring this sparkling children's program. what was different when you went back in, you know, after you got the job? what, what? what did you walk into culturally culturally? it was still very similar because it really had only been two years since the soviet collapsed. so, you know, it wasn't that from what it had been, they hadn't shaken off the hangover. they hadn't shaken off years of communism overnight, although you would think that, you know, if you looked at this project in particular was funding for was spearheaded by biden then senator biden. and so you know the the west was just evangelical about the collapse of communism and and they thought that was it. it was all going to be good. now, we we were somewhat naive about you, how long it would take, or if you know at all possible for russia to change. now we're, speaking of that naivete, that kind of leads into the next thing the henson company, which is also sesame street. and they are lovely people. both my husband and i have worked for them and they're known for their cultural nuances when they do. they had previously done a number of foreign sesame street's and they didn't usually go in thinking they were just going to xerox what they'd been doing in america. and in your book, it speaks about they would really look at the history and and music and costumes and colors of these various places. and they a really good reputation for being sensitive to those things. and yet when got there, it seemed like russia was particularly insurmountable in this area. so if you tell me like, was it western arrogance, everybody just thought it would be a cakewalk or was there more naivete that that sets the stage for your unbelievable herculean struggle to get this done? well, i mean, sesame has international co-productions all over the world. and they did then to. and as you said, henson henson company built the puppets for those international productions. and each of those productions ideally were supposed to reflect the values and culture of the different countries. so, for instance in in, you know, every sesame street co-production has a neighborhood and all the neighborhoods looked different. so in south africa, it's a marketplace it's in norway, it's train station, their neighborhood in the u.s., it's urban environment. that is the idea for that was basically so when you know we went to teach to create the russian production we used the same model that sesame street had used in all the different countries successfully correct. they didn't get the amount of pushback that you were about to walk into. no, no. this was probably the first one of the first productions. i think that most of their productions were in europe or in mexico. i had also worked and trained. i did the russian production. but but the challenges in this production were enormous. the cultural clashes you know, we we faced i know i know we're going to talk about this at some point, but we tremendous violence, you know in the with our our sponsor our first sponsor of the show his car blown up and. we'll get to that. i'll get to that. okay. we'll about it. but but in terms the culture the you know there were many areas that came up during the curriculum seminar which is a three day workshop where we bring. child educators from over the former soviet union and the creative team. and at this meeting, you know, we are trying to decide what are we going to teach children of the post-communist era, what values, what what scenarios are we going to write? you know, how do we how will muppets model new ideas? so when we did that, the, you know, for instance, like i raised my hand and i said we were in this discussion and i said, what about a scenario where where children would have run a stand and? you know, the reaction to that was just horror, you know, how how they and they explained said, you know, this is this would be shameful all to have children selling things on the streets. you know, the only that sold things intercom pianism on the street were criminals because independent was illegal making a profit was illegal. wow. okay. you also got about whether they needed muppets at all in russia. yeah, we had the i mean, we nearly had i think an international crisis over the muppets and the the the russians. i would i say russians, but we had, you know russians, ukrainians, armenians, everybody but the creative team really they didn't like the the the henson's soft foam fuzzy. yes and when we first proposed the series the head writer said well we want to use our own muppets we have a revered tradition dating back to the 16th century of puppetry and okay i have to stop you there for a second so their was if it was good for catherine the great it's good enough my four year old oh god and i think some their actual national nationally known puppets that had been on television for probably something you wanted to pursue. can you talk that a little bit? yeah, they were --. these puppets. no, no. the first, if not scary. yeah. the first time. you know, as as they were arguing in favor of their own muppets. so they had me meet with their chief puppet designer and he walks in with two sacks and he pulls out these puppets, and he, you know holding them up. and one puppet says to the other puppet, i'm going to kill you, you know, and this is all this is in russian. and i'm sitting here thinking, you know, this puppet on puppet violence is not for sesame street. like, you know, and that and and the characters had like they were wooden and they had really cruel expressions. so i thought this just, you know, we're looking for something very different, something completely well, there was a lot of centuries of being a howling bummer. so i that that just reflected that wasn't one of them. a cannibal. oh yeah. well they there's love what she remembers. well i read it over the last two days because i wanted to be fresh so this is not like i read it a month ago. is burning in my brain right now. yeah. no animal muppets. yeah. hence is a love that at the end of one of the these very very meetings where you know the whole table was covered with like coffee cups and cookies, everything for hours trying to figure what to do and they one of the people said they really wanted to have baba yaga as of their muppets. and that is a witch who eats children. so so i was like, we have we have a long road to go. but it wasn't only that. it was also like the music director, oh, this was good. it was a, you know, in a accomplished pianist and and a composer and she insisted that the only have classical music and everybody knows i mean sesame street is known for its music its diversity its inventiveness in terms of the music. and also i had lived the soviet union, you know, for during this earlier period and had made another film about underground rock and roll and a lot of those musicians had been persecuted under they weren't allowed to their music. they weren't allowed perform and they couldn't make any money earn a living from it. if this woman had had her way, they would have stayed that way. oh, right, yeah. yeah. she was one of the more rigid and unflappable characters that i know and another another colleague called her the oldest 30 year old i'd ever met my life. right. um, talk for a minute, though, because there is a lot of cultural, legitimate cultural that these people had and possibly mistrust of the west because they'd been indoctrinated, think that for so many years. and now suddenly everything cracks open and they've got pizza hut mcdonald's, which they have mixed feelings about. right. and so and now going to be adorable, clever little ditties like rubber ducky, russian they admittedly they did not use any of the same songs that we knew in america. but you know there were arguably going to be new ones that kids could actually sing. i don't see kids on the playground. you singing prokofiev. i mean but this is what she thought, right? but no, i understood where she was coming from, i mean, they had incredibly long, rich tradition of music and, actually, most of their animated for, you know, children used classical music and they're beautiful. it's all cel animation. and we were lucky because the talent base of these incredibly talented people was very high. so we pulled people our team was about 400 puppeteers, was artists set designers, writers producers and and so at this time, studios in in russia were black. there was no money to make films. and they were unemployed. and when i back to russia in january of 2020 and i met with the chief director who's now in his eighties and he told something that he hadn't told me for 30 years, and he played hard to get when i was going trying to hire him. and telling me, oh, i'm doing another film now and everything. and he told me in january that he hadn't worked in a year and a that he was incredibly worried about feeding his family. and when we offered him the job, you know, it was like the greatest at that time, but it took him 30 years to tell me that. would you say that economic fear is of the largest reasons why you were able to assemble this team. did they want to what percentage of them you think actually wanted to help you bring sesame street to russia and what percentage them initially? because i know this changed over time just wanted the paycheck also didn't come right away but we'll get to that i would say that that was a depiction of the of the team at all really that you know the after after a you know living under communism for that many years people felt this incredible release and hope passion about trying create a better russia a different russia as they often referred it. we want to create a normal country. oh, and at the same said at the same time they did have enormous pride and and rightfully so. i russia has made tremendous artistic contributions. oh, god, to the world and what they did you know i've worked in i had worked in different countries the experience that i had creating the muppets, for example with the russians was like nothing at all i mean, the discussion of what the color going to be of the muppets involved a multi dimension no conversation about a kandinsky kandinsky and the artist had written a treatise on the theory of color the meaning of color. yeah right which was you know it related to the emotion that different colors carry. so this had to be part of the that because everybody was fluent in that. yes. everybody and they looked at me when i said, what are you guys talking about? and they said, oh, yellow you can't be yellow. that causes. and you know, and then they got to the red one and, you know, makes children hyper. and i thought. wait a second. elmo's red, you know, i mean, he's like the most character, but, you know, eventually they chose they chose blue and even was a discussion because the word for blue in russian a boy means gay. so some of the people thought people will think the puppet's gay. and i was like puppets don't have a sexual identity like other funny. i'd like to back up a little bit even though this is all stuff i love to when you kind of just arrived there and you told by corporate headquarters that one of your first tasks in this kind of environment is to find a broadcasting partner and like you to discuss, this is the part of the book where i like natasha was like sisyphus pushing this boulder up the hill only to have it roll down again and explode so it's worse than sisyphus. if you could get into that a little bit, was where i began to think i would not be woman enough to go through what went through. and i'll ask you more about how you managed to persevere in the face of things she's about to tell you. yeah. i mean there were there the environment after had fallen apart was very violent so the the center of the government was was weak. and at this point you had the west western bankers investors flooding into the country and was enormous amount of money flowing russia at this time and the oligarchs were starting to take over so at this point you know were sesame street a nonprofit and we are looking for a sponsor for our show so we finally. one in one of the oligarchs who. you know, decided that what we were doing was important and. we negotiated a deal. he was all in and, you know, he was sort of upset that big bird wasn't to be in the show. but they were going to have their own original muppets, bluebird, bluebird. who did win on the blue thing, after all, gave bluebird? yes, but but anyway, he you know he he was his car was blown up in a car bombing and he had severe burns most of his body and. he had to leave the country. the country, really. and that was one deal that exploded. and then not less than a few months later, we did another broadcast deal. so this was now second time we had done this and that was with the head of russia's largest television broadcaster. there were only two channels in russia at this time, so they didn't have cable as we did in the u.s. there there were a few tiny stations that were just starting. and that signal from the russian station was sent across 11 time zones. so when we got the deal to do the broadcasts, there was a it was a big deal. and this this was a wonderful man list of who was trying to freedom of expression of free press to the tv station and to battle corruption inside the television station related to advertising revenue. and when he went home to his to his house after leaving the tv station, he was shot on the steps of his home and this is the moment where i want to ask you at any point, if you were personally afraid for your own physical. i wish i wish had been more, you know. it's it's sort of like you're younger. you you don't think you sort of think you're close to it. but this these two circum stances were probably the scariest moments for me. other one other moment that happened later. but yeah, there's, you know, it was just a little too close comfort and mostly i was just really sad because these were people that i had, you know, become close to. they were my confidants. they i trusted them and were going to help us and at no point was there ever an official explanation, of course. right to this day that murder of lordly steve, 120 judicial files in their in their in their station. and it's still unsolved. one of the things in natasha's book that i found in retrospect typically russian is these unbelievably fraught. things would happen and there would never be any explanation and you would never know who was behind it or why. i mean, it could have been the guy's mistress or it could been a complete political, you know, hit job and always scary when you don't know what you're dealing or who's behind it. so this leads me to what i personally found. even though she was not physically present at the time to be maybe most scary incident, those were awful. but this actually had to do with your office's. yeah, we had. so our office was inside the television station. this is a station that i visited in january 2020, which was, you know, surreal to be walking around the same place 30 years later. but now it was different and. we had all of our scripts and equipment, even a life size elmo that was our mascot in the office and. what happened is soldiers came all of a sudden they had ak sevens and they took over the entire floor and kicked everybody out of the office is and then took locks and sealed the lock on the offices and put on it and said, everybody, that's it done. and of course everything was in this office and at this time. there are no computers. we didn't have been computers existed, of course, but we we had limited use of computers because most of the people will. 99.9% of the people we worked with had never used a computer before. so we had all of our written scripts and everything in this office and that pretty terrifying. okay, this there are some slightly more things i'm going to get to, but you had glamorous female partner who professed great affection for you, but barely came through with offices or production money. and you really knew what the deal was with. her to this day, do you i mean, irina yes, yes. she of the designer boots, fabulous hair. but like somehow it seemed like corporate headquarters had to bail you out a few times with cash infusions, did finally come through with new offices? yes. no, she was amazing. she she was she she was the kind of person that, you know she would she could get anybody to do. anything. she was including you including me. she was cokehead ish and incredibly powerful at the same time. and and yeah, she she she created she made my life hell. but at the same time, i adored her. i mean, i know that her heart was in the right place, but there were it was very difficult to be woman in the advertising and business in russia at that time and for team i mean we we hired mostly women so i was when i accepted the job with sesame street i knew going in you know russia is very patriarchal vehicle sexist society and had come from america as a film person and it was also not easy. so i thought, okay, i can create the team that is, you know, more than 50% women. and so a female partner and females helped facilitate that key roles made it you know a really unusual production. all right like you didn't have enough on your plate with all of these other things. so i'm going to get back to some of the creative things that you did in a minute. but you fell in love, got married and got pregnant, all while trying to lift like atlas the world on your shoulders and after corporate headquarters agreed to step with a cash infusion because irina wasn't quite there yet you know because your people getting paid you became something that i have never before heard of which is a lactating cash can you tell that story to? these people i was howling when i read it. i mea the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c., february 27, 2023,. to the senate under the provisio

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