It popped the bubble in a fun way.īut we don’t break on the show, at least that the audience will see, but I think it’s obvious when we’re on the edge of it. And the cool thing about it is that when they did break, which was very rare, it was fun. Their brains are going at lightning speed. There’s a sketch she did with Robin Williams that is a master class in improvisation. Watching her variety show, you could tell they’re capturing something that they’ll never get again. When a joke works in the moment, a second take is never going to work.Ĭarol Burnett also follows that philosophy, and her sketch comedy is timeless.Ĭarol Burnett was a massive influence. She said, ask him if he’s Afro-Latino, and where’s Afro-Latinia? Seventy percent of what you see was not in the script, and was done in only one take because I don’t believe in redoing. Then there’s the Afro-Latino joke - one of our writers whispered it to me. You can see my back kind of doing this and it’s because I’m trying to hold it together. That’s what it really takes to do that sketch. I mean, why would he even join in this? He did such a good balance of fighting me, but also playing along. When I start singing “Wade in the Water,” and he starts harmonizing and he sounds so beautiful, it actually made me laugh. She broke some takes because she was laughing so loud, but he never broke, he never relented. Bridget was sitting two feet from us and I could see her shoulders shaking the whole time. But after that, we ripped that baby up and we just went. The scripted version is like three pages: a basic setup, intro and a couple of the jokes. Colman is perfect.Īnd it truly feels like an unscripted interview. I needed somebody who’s a good actor, who can go toe to toe with her and won’t back down. I wanted her to go head to head with a man, which she never really does. We don’t usually write scripts for celebrities, but because he’s playing this hyper-realized version of himself, I wrote a script specifically for him. How did that happen?Ĭolman and I are friends, so I wrote a script for him. This season, she interviews “Euphoria’s” Colman Domingo, and it’s brilliant. One of my favorite sketches is “Black Table Talk” with its host, the “world-renowned philosophizer” Dr. I told her to just go out there and be that overbearing mom. Plus I knew I could boss her around and get what we wanted out of her, so it was really fun. But I knew she would be good, and she was. So I thought, my niece can do this! And everybody’s like, has she ever acted? No, she’d be a nepo baby. I definitely didn’t want to call a bunch of girls in for this. We’ve only ever had like two for the show. There’s an actual child in the sketch ( Episode 2 ) who plays a prospective student. Their goal is to baptize the most babies in a quarter, and the “game” is replete with a court, hoop and commentators. How about “Baptism Runs on Dunkin ’ ” ( Episode 2 )? It’s structured like an NBA Slam Dunk contest, but the competition is between church deacons. It’s like shooting a new short film every day with the best guest stars, the best actors, the best writing. I will talk about any sketch and tell you all the juicy details, because there’s so many great stories. Thank you for your willingness to break down the anatomy of a sketch, or several sketches. (One note: This interview took place several weeks before the writers’ strike.) Airing weekly (Episode 5 premieres tonight on HBO), the new season expands upon the madness with such eloquently titled episodes as “Peek-a-Boob, Your Titty’s Out.” We spoke with Thede, television’s first black woman director and black female head writer of a sketch comedy show, about what it takes to bring the show and its litany of characters to life. The show also features weekly guest stars including Rae, Angela Bassett, Sam Richardson and Tracee Ellis Ross. There is no show on television quite like “A Black Lady Sketch Show.” Now in its fourth season, Robin Thede’s fearless comedy series slices and dices pop culture, race issues, dating woes, feminism, religion and more into 30-minute blasts of fantastically twisted humor.Ĭo-executive produced by Issa Rae, the show is renowned for pushing the boundaries of the absurd with its cast of featured players Gabrielle Dennis, Skye Townsend, Tamara Jade, DaMya Gurley and Angel Laketa Moore.
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