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.”
