Saturday Night Live has dominated the comedy scene on television for 45 years. Creating many memorable moments and laughs, the show is a household name when it comes to sketch-comedy. There have been other comedy shows to rival SNL across the years. However, there has never been a show like A Black Lady Sketch Show.
What is A Black Lady Sketch Show?
A Black Lady Sketch Show is a sketch comedy television show. The show describes itself as:
"A narrative series set in a limitless magical reality full of dynamic, hilarious characters and celebrity guests. The show presents sketches performed by a core cast of Black women, including Robin Thede, Ashley Nicole Black, Gabrielle Dennis, and Quinta Brunson."
A Black Lady Sketch Show, HBO.com
A Black Lady Sketch Show is constantly delivering top-notch performances, writing, and production value in every single sketch. Their first season consists of 5-6 sketches per episode with 6 episodes in total. The show stars Robin Thede (The Rundown with Robin Thede, The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore), Gabrielle Dennis (Marvel's Luke Cage, The Bobby Brown Story, Rosewood, Swat), Quinta Brunson (Single Parents, Lazor Wulf, BuzzFeed), and Ashley Nicole Black (Emmy Awar-Winner, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.) In addition to this star-studded cast, the show also features guest stars such as Angela Bassett, Aja Naomi King, Patti LaBelle, Amber Riley, and more. The show was renewed for a second season, but has been postponed due to COVID.
JavaScript is currently disabled in this browser. Reactivate it to view this content.What is the importance of this?
This show is the first leading main-stream sketch show constructed, starring, and written by Black Women. Lauren Ashley Smith is the Head Writer. The writing room then consists of Robin Thede, Ashley Nicole Black, Akilah Green, Brittani Nichols, Amber Ruffin, Rae Sanni, and Holly Walker. Why is this important? Well, let's take a look back at Saturday Night Live. SNL has had 45 seasons, and over the span of those seasons, they have had 25 head writers. The head writers would sometimes span multiple seasons and there would occasionally be up to 1-4 head writers per season. Based on my research into these head writers, Saturday Night Live has never had a Black Woman as a head writer. A Black Lady Sketch Show is representing Black Women in positions both on-screen and off-screen.
Where can I watch it?
A Black Lady Sketch Show airs on HBO and is available to stream on HBOMax, or through the HBO add-on for Hulu or Amazon Prime. You can also purchase the first season on Amazon, Youtube, or GooglePlay. Sketches such as Invisible Spy, Rome and Julissa, Cool Handshake Teacher Needs A Win, among others, are available on YouTube.
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