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Saturday night viewers of NBC didn't get a new episode of Saturday Night Live, but 150 audience members at the UCB Theater did! Live and un-aired, the show was to help raise money for crew members affected by the strike. Amy Poehler, who organized the event, made this statement:
"The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater is a second home to a lot of these performers and writers. We are doing this to raise spirits, raise awareness, and raise money for our hard working production crews who will be having a hard holiday season if this strike continues."According to the NY Post, guests included Darrell Hammond, "Freaks and Geeks" star Samm Levine and host Michael Cera. In addition, everyone from the cast was on hand -- except Maya Rudolph. Lorne Michaels, who celebrated his 63rd birthday that night, was even in attendance. As for the audience, a majority of it was comprised of friends of cast members and regular performers at UCB, so the show was just as hard to get into as the regular SNL taping at Studio 8H. Tonight another hard to get into show will be hosted at UCB when 30 Rock takes the stage (this won't be Alec Baldwin's first time performing at the venue either), though the site still says a limited amount of tickets will be available at the door.
The Times has a slideshow from the event, and it looks like Samberg and Armisen performed their Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rap! And the musical guest? Yo La Tengo. Check out the Times play-by-play of the night, here, and a more exhaustive play-by-play at Huffington Post.
Photo via The New York Times
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The irony of this non-SNL show was that they all crossed theater worker picket lines to do it.
I doubt the UCB theater is covered by the same union as the Broadway theaters. Aren't all of the off-Broadway shows still open and even a few Broadway theaters that had their own contracts?
Maybe Amy Poehler and her husband can give some of their Gap ad money to the less fortunate.
this thing was stupid. It was an elitist self masturabatory gesture at best. I was feeling sympathetic towards the WGA until I learned that this event was not open to the public. So why, advertise and make this newsworthy when it' s for the writers themselves? It was all rich fat cat writers too. It's like thousandaires telling us to feel sorry for them. Fuck that.
Theater worker picket lines? Have you ever been to UCB?
I Don't understand a few things posted here - 1st - what theater worker picket lines were crossed? The UCB is not a Broadway Theater, its barely off-off broadway and i live nearby, shop in the gristedes on the ground floor; i have never witnessed any theater workers picket lines and i was there Saturday afternnon shopping for groceries.
2nd- I do no think this is about unfortunate types as much as it is about unfairly profiting off of the writer's efforts. They simply want what they feel they deserve - and are exercising their right. Value judgements aside, I do not understand why income for performing in Gap advertising is to be donated and to whom?
3rd - I believe the point of publicizing the event was to bring awareness to the issue and not to make an an elitist self masturabatory gesture. As far as I am concerned, I would rather view a television program that was well written by a well paid writer at the top of his profeession and not an inferior script written by an angry carping snarky wannabe.
ucb theatre doesnt have paid stagehands. their stagehands are mostly all volunteers from their classes. so no irony there.
Haha picket lines at UCB. Yeah, those highly paid PBR salesmen and improv actors really need to picket.
Good to see that SNL has managed to weather the strike without any significant decline in its audience.
i kind of think snl needs some competition. perhaps a chicago based version that does some improv with their sketches.
though that is neither her nor there.
as for the writers, they deserve money they are owed. I wish they wouldn't turn it into a fatcats vs. poor writers argument, or get college students into it by making it hip to support the cool writers and to rally against the totally square executives, but that's just kind of how it is.
good luck writers!
as for the writers, they deserve money they are owed.
And what is that exactly?