'Saturday Night Live' Auditioning Black Female Cast Members for Early 2014
Saturday Night Live has long been criticized for its lack of diversity over the years, with a recent sketch even lampooning the fact that host Kerry Washington would have to play an uncomfortable amount of black female characters due to the lack of another black woman on the cast to shoulder the burden. But now it looks like the lack of diversity is en route to being remedied.
SNL creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels has confirmed that he will hired a black woman to join the cast of the show in early 2014. In fact, auditions have already begun.
"All told we've seen about 25 people," Michaels tells the The New York Times. "A lot of the people we saw are really good. Hopefully we'll come out of the process well."
He went on to state that they're considering possibly adding two black women, although he doesn't want to cause a male-to-female ratio imbalance. The series held the first round of auditions at L.A.'s Groundlings Theater a few weeks ago specifically for black women. Some of the hopefuls tweeted from the auditions:
Omg I am at the Groundlings theater about to audition for #SNL please pray for me yall!
— Tiffany Haddish (@TiffanyHaddish) December 2, 2013
The hilarious BLACK women who just rock the SNL audition. #WeJustMadeHistory ME gabrielle_dennis… http://t.co/dJMLfA6y8A
— simone shepherd (@simoneshepherd) December 2, 2013
Shepherd included this photo from the audition, shared on her Instagram account, featuring the 10 other actresses who auditioned.
No word on when the final casting decision will be made, but the new cast member is expected to join the show once the series returns from midseason hiatus in early 2014.