They were called the Not Ready for Prime-Time Players, and boy, were they ever.
The original cast of Saturday Night Live featured seven young and mostly unknown performers in skits referencing sex, drugs and occasionally rock & roll, mocking political figures and celebrities, and getting away with jokes that would have had prime-time censors reaching for the smelling salts.
Subject matter wasn’t the only difference between SNL and the rest of the networks’ lineups. Saturday Night Live was, well, live. No multiple takes, no editing. Flub a line, miss a cue? Tough. Recover and carry on as best you can. Sort of like theater. Actually, a lot like theater.
As Saturday Night Live begins its 52nd season, here’s a look at some of the show’s performers who have reached the Broadway stage.
SNL cast members Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi and Gilda Radner were veterans of Second City, the revered improvisational comedy institution operating in Chicago and Toronto. Garrett Morris was a Broadway veteran with credits stretching back to 1967. Jane Curtain made her Broadway debut the year after she left SNL, in the 1981 revival of George Bernard Shaw’s Candida. Curtain proved to be the cast member who actually was ready for prime time, starring in two long-running sit-coms: Kate & Allie (1984-1989) and 3rd Rock From the Sun (1996-2001).
Radner made the biggest splash of any SNL alum on Broadway, starring in 1979’s Gilda Radner – Live From New York, a one-woman show featuring her many SNL characters, including Roseanne Roseannadanna, Emily Litella, Lisa Loopner (not to mention the hilariously filthy ditty “Let’s Talk Dirty to the Animals”). Radner also was in the cast of the now-legendary 1972 Toronto production of Godspell, which featured other future comedy stars such as Eugene Levy and Martin Short. (It’s the subject of the critically-acclaimed documentary You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love & Overalls, and Created a Community That Changed the World (in a Canadian Kind of Way).
Later cast members also made it to the Great White Way:
Ana Gasteyer was in the recent revival of Once Upon a Mattress and also had a run as Elphaba in Wicked. She earned a Tony® nomination this year for her role in Schmigadoon! Also nominated in the same category (Best Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical) was Rachel Dratch for her role as The Narrator in Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show. She was also nominated in 2022 for her performance in POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive.
Taran Killam has played King George in Hamilton as well as Sir Lancelot in Spamalot.
Maya Rudolph made her Broadway debut earlier this year portraying an addled Mary Todd Lincoln in Oh, Mary! That role is now being performed by another SNL alum, Bowen Yang. (Oh, Mary!, with J. Harrison Ghee in the title role, comes to Straz April 6-11, 2027. For tickets or for more information, visit our website or call 813.229.7827.)
Tina Fey didn’t tread the boards, but she did pick up a Tony® nomination for drafting the book for the Broadway adaptation of her hit 2004 film, Mean Girls.
SNL’s cast members may not have been ready for prime time, buy their many Broadway credits show they’ve been ready for showtime. Proximity may not help but it doesn’t hurt: Since its debut, Saturday Night Live has been broadcast from Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, less than half a mile from the theater district.