Leila Ghaznavi

Leila Ghaznavi is a puppeteer of American-Iranian descent who is the performer of Yasmine on Sesame Street starting with its 54th season. Before Sesame Street, she served as a swing performer for the Jim Henson Company special exhibit called X.Tink.shun, along with Jeff Cleve. Leila has a wide range in diverse acting methods other than puppetry, such as mask work, clown, aerial acrobatics, and acting itself. Ghaznavi must have been excited to have been cast as a new Sesame Street Muppet. Other than being a performer, she is also a playwright, where she made works on various topics like discrimination of homosexuals. Her piece known as Silken Veils, first premiered in the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was nominated for the Fringe First Award for best new work. Leila Ghaznavi also performed her works around the world such as various cities in America, Indonesia, and Norway. I wonder how she was chosen to be the performer of Yasmine. She probably attended a puppeteer training workshop at Sesame Workshop and was one of the lucky performers chosen to perform on Sesame Street. Hopefully Leila became familiar with other new puppeteers on the show such as Yinan Shentu, Andrew A. Cano, and many others. And who knows, Ghaznavi will probably continue to perform Yasmine on the future seasons, you never know. She seems to be such a talented performer with many acting methods. I don't know any other puppeteer who can aerial acrobatics. Leila Ghaznavi, you should be proud to have been one of the newest Muppet performers on Sesame Street and the Muppet Wiki too. I'm sure you were a natural during production of the 54th season. Keep on puppeteering and doing other methods of acting too. You might influence other puppeteers to be like you Leila. Great performances Ghaznavi!