"Saturday Night Live" did indeed hold secret auditions to find a new comedian after being lambasted by fans, the media and even civil rights groups for only casting four black females during the show's 38-year run, and the New York Daily News has the scoop on the three finalists who are currently in the running to join "SNL."
Two "secret auditions" were held this month in Los Angeles and New York, and "seven to eight callbacks" were offered to black female performers, including sketch comedian Kerry Coddett, who has been vocal about her disdain for the show's failure to diversify their cast and adequately represent black women.
"The show's long history suggests that 'Saturday Night Live' just doesn't know what to do with black women," Coddett wrote back in November in an op-ed piece for The Atlantic. "The roles it offers to them fall in line with much of the rest of popular media: stereotypical, demeaning, and scarce....With the advent of YouTube and digital media, if SNL isn't finding great talent, it's probably because the casting methods have lagged behind the times. Millennial black comediennes might be getting overlooked because their progressive characters don't fit roles the show is used to."
Coddett also wrote an opinion piece for the Huffington Post on the same topic, arguing that "the SNL writers' room needs to be more diverse for the sake of being true to the art form and the audience."
In addition to Kerry Coddett, Natasha Rothwell and Sasheer Zamata are also in consideration to join the next cast of the long-running sketch comedy show, all three alumnae of the Upright Citizens Brigade. According to the Daily News, Lorne Michaels was on hand to assess the women's auditions in Manhattan on Dec. 2, while a "separate round of auditions was held at The Groundlings Theater in Los Angeles on Dec. 1."
Rothwell is a highly accomplished comedienne, a cast member of the Maude team Dinner, The Curfew and The Striking Viking Story Pirates, a performer in the award-winning duo Hodapp and Rothwell, and "travels the country performing at comedy festivals in DC, Chicago, Toronto, Charleston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, just to name a few," as PolicyMic reports.
Zamata is a NYC comedian, actress and writer whose work has appeared in Jezebel, BUST, Think Progress, Clutch Magazine, and Vulture. She's appeared in commercials for Target, Verizon Wireless and Apple, "runs a web series called the Pursuit of Sexiness, and performs stand-up whenever and wherever she can, most notably at the the Great American Comedy Festival, the North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival, and Comedy Central's Comics to Watch Showcase," according to PolicyMic.
Meanwhile, many fans are questioning why "SNL" has to pick only one black female cast member and can't hire all three.
