The New Yorker has a fascinating long-form piece on long-time SNL producer Lorne Michaels. I highlight this article here because there is a dichotomy between comedy and ministry: both require coming up with new material week after week and both can be lonely practices.

There is so much to learn from this article; a few highlights:

The kickoff to every episode, the weekly Writers’ Meeting, is at 6 P.M. on Monday, on the seventeenth floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, in Michaels’s Art Deco office, which overlooks the skating rink. Monday, Michaels says, is “a day of redemption,” a fresh start after spending Sunday brooding over Saturday night’s mistakes… The goal of the gathering, which Tina Fey compares to a “church ritual,” is to make the host feel like one of the gang.

Although Michaels has firm rules about sketch comedy, he is more flexible about the talent-management aspect of his producer role. Different personalities, he believes, require different approaches. To some, Michaels will bark, “Don’t f—- it up.” Bill Hader, who is prone to anxiety attacks, remembers Michaels coming to his dressing room when he hosted and snapping, “Calm the f—- down. Just have fun…” With others, he is warmer. Molly Shannon treasures the memory of how, when she was nervous just before going onstage, Michaels would “reassure me with his eyes.”

Read the full New Yorker article here.