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Saturday Night Live ain’t the only game in town when it comes to sketch comedy. Shows like Key & Peele, Portlandia, and Inside Amy Schumer have pushed the genre into totally new territory over the past decade, expanding what sketch comedy looks like on TV, and pretty soon you’ll be able to add another groundbreaking sketch comedy show to that list.
HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show is already revolutionary for being, well, a black lady sketch show. The show celebrates one of the most underrepresented groups in sketch comedy both on-camera and behind-the-scenes. The show’s cast, writing staff, and director are all black ladies–which means this show has more black ladies involved than have been on the Saturday Night Live cast in 40+ years.
The series was created by Robin Thede and executive produced by Issa Rae, who assembled a who’s who of up-and-coming comedians to round out the cast and writing staff. They also cast a stunning number of A-list guest stars to help fill out the Black Lady Sketch Show world. First, meet the five ladies that make up the main cast.
Robin Thede
The creator of A Black Lady Sketch Show, Robin Thede is no stranger to blazing trails. Prior to her current HBO gig, Thede hosted The Rundown with Robin Thede on BET and served as the head writer for The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, where she was also on-camera talent. Her Nightly Show job made her the first black woman to be the head writer of a late-night talk show. Thede got her start as a correspondent for E! News in 2007 and went on to act in episodes of Hot in Cleveland, Key and Peele, and Difficult People. Her writing credits prior to The Nightly Show include the BET Awards and The Queen Latifah Show, where she was also head writer.
Issa Rae
A Black Lady Sketch Show executive producer and co-star Issa Rae is already a big deal on HBO. Her comedy series Insecure is critically acclaimed and has earned her Golden Globe and Emmy nominations. Rae rose to fame through her web series The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl, which released 25 episodes between 2011 and 2013. Since Insecure’s debut in 2016, Rae has appeared in the films The Hate U Give and was co-lead of the 2019 comedy Little. She also voices Dr. Indira on BoJack Horseman.
Ashley Nicole Black
Writer and performer Ashley Nicole Black comes from Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, where she worked as a writer and correspondent from the show’s launch in 2016 up until 2019. Her work on the show won her an Emmy in 2017 for the “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner” special, and she’s been nominated alongside the Full Frontal writing team at every Emmy ceremony since 2016. On top of appearing on Full Frontal, she told the story of how Martin Luther King Jr. impacted Star Trek on Drunk History.
Gabrielle Dennis
Performer Gabrielle Dennis has the most on-screen experience, having spent the last dozen years performing on shows ranging from tween comedies to superhero shows. Her sketch cred stretches back to 2006 when she appeared on the cast of Showtime’s The Underground, which was created by Damon Wayans and also starred Damon Wayans Jr. and SNL’s Mikey Day. From there she played Janay Brice on The Game, Denise on Blue Mountain State, and Pippy on Rosewood. Her most recent roles include a recurring role on Insecure as Candice, and playing the mysterious Tilda Johnson in Season 2 of Marvel’s Luke Cage. And in 2018, she played Whitney Houston in BET’s Bobby Brown Story mini-series.
Quinta Brunson
Like Rae, Quinta Brunson also translated internet comedy success into appearing on HBO. Brunson went viral in 2014 with the web series Girl Who Has Never Been on a Nice Date and followed that up with a video producer job at BuzzFeed. Through BuzzFeed, she sold two series to streaming services (YouTube’s Broke in 2016 and go90’s Up for Adoption in 2017), which she also wrote and starred in. Her most recent streaming creation is Facebook Watch’s Quinta vs. Everything. She’s also had recurring roles on Single Parents and iZombie and voices characters on Adult Swim’s Lazor Wulf.
There are more names to know than just the five stars. In addition to cast members Robin Thede and Ashley Nicole Black, the writing staff includes Lauren Ashley Smith (The Rundown with Robin Thede), Akilah Green (Chelsea), Brittani Nichols (Take My Wife), Amber Ruffin (Late Night with Seth Meyers), Rae Sanni (The President Show), and Holly Walker (The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore). Dime Davis (Boomerang) directed the series.
A Black Lady Sketch Show also guest stars Angela Bassett, Tia Mowry, Aja Naomi King, Lena Waithe, Patti LaBelle, Amber Riley, Yvonne Orji, Loretta Devine, Gina Torres, David Alan Grier, Jermaine Fowler, Lil Rel Howery, Deon Cole, Natasha Rothwell, Marsai Martin, Khandi Alexander, Laverne Cox, Larry Wilmore, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Kelly Rowland.
There’s not a more star-studded show on TV this weekend, that’s for sure.
