![]() But I think on the sketch comedy side, it's still a little slow to break in. In scripted too! You have people like Michaela Coel, who are doing these gut-wrenchingly beautiful pieces of art - not even “TV,” just art. We've made some inroads in late-night and in some other formats, but I think there's just a lot more to be done. I really try to work with as many Black women in sketch as I can. Especially in sketch comedy, there's nothing but room. you know, “the coastal elites,” the New Yorkers, the Brooklynites. ![]() Where is “The Southern Black Women's Comedy Show?” You know what I mean? In white male sketch comedy, you've got all sorts: you've got Canadian comedians, the Southern-fried comics, you've got the comedians in L.A. It won’t be enough until we have the sort of representation where we're seeing all types. All of these things are happening and I love seeing them. My beloved Amber Ruffin, who I have known for decades and who wrote on season one of A Black Lady Sketch Show, has been killing it with her late-night show. I want to hire you." Phoebe Robinson has a bunch of shows she's doing - she has a new one on Comedy Central. I met her when she was an intern - I was just like, "You're funny on Twitter. With the success of Insecure, lots of women… I mean, my friend Ziwe is coming to Showtime with her show, and she used to write for my late-night show. There are only a few of us who are in the comedy space - who are doing it. Look, I think we're just getting started in terms of Black women creating, starring in, and writing their own projects. When A Black Lady Sketch Show premiered in 2019, you said that you decided to use “A” in the title instead of “The” because you hoped that, one day, your show would just be “one of many.” In the two years since, how do you think the culture around Black women-led comedy series has shifted? (A few impressive men show up too, from Jesse Williams and Laz Alonso to Omarion and Miguel.)Īhead of Friday’s HBO premiere for A Black Lady Sketch Show, NYLON hopped on the phone with Robin Thede to talk about season two, celebrating Black joy, the slow-but-sure changing tides for Black women working in comedy, the bright side of shooting a show during the middle of a world-shifting pandemic, and how Trump being in the White House inspired her eerily prescient sketch idea about four women stranded together at the end of the world. have assembled a similarly stacked cast of guest stars this time around - including Gabrielle Union, Skai Jackson, Kim Wayans, Amber Riley, and Ayesha Curry. And after securing everyone from Laverne Cox to Angela Bassett (who went on to receive an Emmy nomination for her performance) to guest star in its inaugural season, Thede & Co. Haddassah Olayinka Ali-Youngman, Pre-Ph.D?). The end-of-the-world interstitials continue - albeit without Brunson, who had to leave the show to develop her own comedy with ABC - as do some of the show’s most memorable characters. (Like many shows, it was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.) In its sophomore outing, ABLSS continues to hilariously shine a light on specifically Black issues - too-long hair appointments, the overwhelming whiteness of the judicial system, the origins of CPT, twerking - through a universal lens. This Friday, HBO will premiere the long-awaited second season of Thede’s brilliant sketch comedy series. But fortunately, for us, that cancellation would eventually pave the way for A Black Lady Sketch Show. Unfortunately, The Rundown was unceremoniously canceled after only one (critically-acclaimed) season. In 2015, she became the first Black woman to lead a writers room for a late-night talk show when she accepted the position for The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, and two years later, she broke similar ground when she premiered her own late-night show on BET, The Rundown with Robin Thede. This didn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Thede’s work - much of which was already history-making. This fact gave ABLSS a sense of built-in importance, but none of it would have mattered if the HBO series didn’t deliver the laughs. Created by Robin Thede (a Black woman), directed by a Black woman, written by Black women, produced by Black women, and starring Black women (including central cast members Thede, Ashley Nicole Black, Quinta Brunson, and Gabrielle Dennis), it was the first sketch comedy show in the history of the medium to center the Black female perspective. When it premiered in August 2019, A Black Lady Sketch Show felt like something entirely new and long overdue.
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