Sunny Corrao stood on duty Halloween night handing out candy to children, her eyes and lips shimmering with dark make-up and wearing a shiny, earth-toned and floral patterned costume she had sewn herself, looking every bit a wood nymph out of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.

A week later, the wood nymph is now in a khaki uniform, accessorized with a tie, wide-brimmed safari hat, and tool belt, lecturing first graders on entomology. “Who likes bugs?” she projects theatrically across a group of mesmerized seven-year-olds with pencils and journals at the ready, about to set off on a nature hike through the Ramble of Central Park. “Everyone?! That’s absolutely fantastic!”

The two scenes reflect the seemingly paradoxical sides of Sgt. Sunny Corrao who came to New York City to pursue her passion for the stage. Today, seven years later, she rescues wild animals, leads nature hikes, and teaches children about caring for trees as a ranger with the Urban Park Rangers in Central Park.
“She’s not a typical city girl. We are all surprised that she has stayed so long,” said her younger sister, Gina Corrao. Yet, she added: “ She likes to go against the current, she is a dramatic person.”

Drama has always been a part of Corrao’s life. She was born and raised in a rowdy “typical Italian family” in Las Vegas, where her father worked as a computer operator at the Rio Casino, and family office parties often featured dancing showgirls. Her father, an amateur pilot, would announce on Saturday morning that they were going to have breakfast 300 miles away, and so the family would fly off for pancakes. One winter day, he filled the back of his pick-up truck with piles of snow from the mountains to surprise the family with a front yard ready for snowman making.

“Our parents brought us up showing us everything. They encouraged us to be whatever we wanted to be and they supported us no matter what,” said sister Gina Corrao.

Now, at age 29, Corrao is tall and sturdy, with long dark hair parted in the middle and pulled severely into a ponytail under her ranger hat – the handcuffs, baton and pepper spray on her tool belt make one feel reassured about any chance encounter with, say, a rabid raccoon, or other threat in the wild.

“You have to have that physical aspect, that physicality and endurance,” she explained in a gentle voice that contradicts her almost intimidating appearance and the exuberant actress she becomes in front of a crowd. “You are on your feet a lot during the day – you are out there protecting the park”.

Despite the flamboyance of Las Vegas, Corrao craved the outdoors and adventure. The family scuba-dived and skied together on vacations. But when it came to hiking and camping, it was Sunny, the oldest of three girls, who went off with her father, while the younger two stayed home. Although she always loved nature, Corrao never thought that she would be a park ranger; rather, her choice of a future career was constantly changing: “I wanted to be a doctor or an artist,” she remembered.

When Corrao graduated from the University of Nevada in 2002 with a degree in environmental science, it was not the lure of nursing injured swans in Central Park that drew her to New York. Rather, she came, like so many others before her, to star in musical theater, a passion she developed in high school and college.

When audition after audition didn’t lead to any roles, Corrao, who had always been a talented seamstress, worked on costume production for Juilliard and The Pearl Theatre Company. But after three and a half years, the appeal of the outdoors was too strong to resist. She was tired of being “stuck inside,” as she describes it, yet still wanted to stay in New York to attend the theater performances that originally drew her here.

In the summer of 2006, she applied to the Urban Park Rangers program (where salaries start at around $35,000), and began work three months later. She was promoted to supervisor in September 2008, and now manages three other rangers.

“You wouldn’t think that these two professions mix but they kind of do. I like to perform,” she said. One major attraction she leads is a Creepy, Crawly Adventure Tour, which is a summer crowd pleaser. “You have to be comfortable speaking in a group, you have to be engaging and to read your audience. I still get that aspect out of me and I get to educate people about what they have around them.”

During the first grade entomology class, Corrao asks the students rhetorical questions and emphasizes her points with large dramatic arm gestures and a voice that spans octaves. She teaches bug body parts by leading a round of “Head, Thorax, Abdomen,” to the tune of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,” and explains bee communication by initiating a “Waggle Dance.” It’s hard to tell who’s having a better time.

“She’s an entertainer, which is an important part of being a ranger,” said Sara Aucoin, Director of the Urban Park Rangers.

Noting that sometimes the people in the park can be more challenging than the animals, Aucoin attributes Corrao’s success to her pleasant manner. Yet Corrao admits that she struggles when it comes to patrolling the grounds. Although she has never been in danger, she acknowledges that Central Park is an urban park, and there is a fear of what can happen when admonishing a wrong-doer.

“We always have to be prepared for the worst,” Corrao said, acknowledging her role as sergeant. “But I tell myself, ‘this is my costume and I’m acting a part’.”

Corrao’s day starts on foot, patrolling the park, issuing warnings to dog-owners with dogs off the leash or to bicyclists riding on the pedestrian path. She chooses a different route each morning to keep repeat offenders on guard.

The occasional emergency crops up – rescuing a raccoon with a limp leg that needs to be evaluated or capturing a boa constrictor that has been spotted devouring squirrels in a tree. A couple of times a year, nature and city intersect, and Corrao will be the one to get called out of the park. She has escorted baby ducklings from Park Avenue to the Harlem Meer, and rescued a red-tailed hawk standing guard on a Madison Avenue traffic light. New Yorkers “ooh” and “ahh” when they see the outfitted Ranger herding nature back to the park.

But most of her time is spent educating the public on the park she is so passionate about. “It really hurts me when people litter. I want people to feel pride in the park and enjoy it,” said Corrao. “If you are not a birder, maybe don’t notice the bird, but notice a new plant. Don’t be blind!”

After a long day, Corrao changed to street clothes (“We sometimes get funny looks and a lot of questions when we leave the park for lunch,” she said) and headed on home to Ridgewood, Queens.

Currently single – though romances among the rangers have been known to ignite during the regular Ranger Happy Hours – she lives with a male roommate, an aspiring fashion designer. The two-bedroom apartment houses two sewing machines, a mannequin dress model, bolts of fabric, a cutting table and racks of their creations. Watching “Project Runway” together is a weekly ritual.

Perhaps for a girl who grew up in Las Vegas, a desert town built for fantasies and where sometimes there’s snow in the front yard, working in the wilderness against a backdrop of skyscrapers doesn’t require much imagination.