Within a year, Manzano joined the PBS children's show Sesame Street and eventually began writing scripts for the series. She went to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on scholarship and in her junior year, came to New York to star in the original production of the off-Broadway show Godspell.
Manzano, a first-generation American of Latino descent, was raised in the South Bronx and graduated from the High School of Performing Arts.
