Saturday Night Live is returning for Season 51 on Oct. 4, with some big changes to its cast and writing staff.
The popular NBC sketch show wrapped its 50th season in May, SNL’s most-watched season in three years, Variety reported. The series earned seven Emmy nominations, plus an additional 24 nominations for its specials celebrating the history of the show.
The show’s cast is already experiencing some shakeups ahead of the start of the new season. In recent weeks, a number of cast members and writers have announced they will not be returning, while several new faces have also been announced.
Here’s what we know about SNL’s upcoming season so far.
Who is not returning to ‘SNL’ for Season 51?
Several cast members and writers will not be returning next season.
John Higgins, one-third of the viral comedy trio Please Don’t Destroy, is leaving SNL after three seasons of the group writing and starring in their own pretaped sketches for the show, Variety reported on Sept. 2. (The other two members of Please Don’t Destroy are staying: Ben Marshall is now part of the show’s cast, and Martin Herlihy will remain on the writing staff.)
Multiple outlets reported that Heidi Gardner, who became the longest-tenured female cast member during Season 50, would be leaving after eight seasons on the show. Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker, who joined the cast in 2022, both announced on Instagram in late August that they would not be returning for what would have been both of their fourth seasons. Emil Wakim, one of three new featured players brought on for Season 50, also shared on social media that he would not be returning.
Two SNL writers have also announced they are leaving: Comedian Rosebud Baker, who has written for “Weekend Update” since February 2022, and Celeste Yim, who has been a sketch writer for the last five seasons.
Read more from Yahoo Entertainment: ‘Saturday Night Live’ ends era of Please Don’t Destroy sketches with latest departure of cast members and writers. What else is changing for Season 51?
New ‘SNL’ cast members announced
In addition to Marshall from Please Don’t Destroy, the new featured players for the upcoming season are Tommy Brennan, Kam Patterson, Veronika Slowikowska and Jeremy Culhane.
Brennan has previously performed stand-up on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon; Patterson is a stand-up comedian and a regular guest on the Kill Tony podcast; Slowikowska is an actress, known for her roles in What We Do in the Shadows and the second season of Netflix’s Tires; and Culhane has performed improv with Upright Citizens Brigade and was a cast member on the online comedy platform Dropout TV.
SNL has not confirmed the full cast list for its upcoming season. The show’s creator and producer, Lorne Michaels, gave a rare interview with Puck on Aug. 22, in which he confirmed only that James Austin Johnson would be returning to play President Trump.
Who is hosting this season?
No hosts or musical guests have been announced yet.
How to watch ‘SNL’
The show airs live on NBC, Peacock and Hulu + Live TV every Saturday night at 11:30 p.m. ET. Peacock and Hulu will have full episodes available to stream the next day. Peacock also hosts an archive of all the past seasons and episodes.
Can you get tickets to watch ‘SNL’ in person?
An SNL ticket lottery is held in August every year, so it’s too late to apply to get tickets for Season 51 shows. However, fans can still request standby tickets and wait in lines outside 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where the show is filmed, in case last-minute tickets become available.
Fans apply via email for the lottery to secure two free tickets to either the dress rehearsal or the live taping of an episode, according to NBC. You cannot choose which show or time you get tickets for; it’s all randomly assigned.
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