SNL craftspeople – From Wednesday read-throughs to Saturday-night performances, “Saturday Night Live” craftspeople race to turn scripts into sketches—working odd hours, leaning on archives, and solving whatever writers and cast throw their way.
The week moves fast at “Saturday Night Live”—it starts on Wednesday and ends on Saturday night.
For the craft teams that bring sketches to life, that timeline isn’t a slogan. It’s a reality you can feel in your bones. Every “SNL” craftsperson is intimately familiar with the whirlwind process: taking sketches that come out of Wednesday afternoon’s read-through and shaping them into something the audience can see. hear. and react to by Saturday night.
The pace comes with sleepless nights and odd hours, but also with a kind of creative adrenaline. Costume designer Tom Broecker framed it that way: it wasn’t until the “50th Anniversary Show” that he fully felt the fit—“I think this is the place for me. ” he said. “I think it speaks to so many different parts of my process. so there’s something exhilarating every week about it and something incredibly challenging every week about it. Every show is still a learning curve.”.
Production designer Keith Raywood. whose tenure on “SNL” culminated in ending Season 51 by putting up his 814th episode. has his own origin story for why he’s still there. Raywood met Lorne Michaels through Eugene Lee during a stretch when Michaels was no longer running his creation. Raywood recalled that in 1985. at a meeting where Michaels said he was going back to “SNL. ” Michaels pointed at him across the table: “Oh. and we’re going to bring Keith with us too. I was kind of the kid in the room. I may be the only person who was told he was going to work on ‘Saturday Night Live’ and didn’t ask for the job.”.
Raywood said Mike Myers’ then-wife, Robin [Ruzan], followed up with a question that stuck: “So let me get this straight: You had one job interview your entire life?”
By Wednesday night, the build is already underway. Broecker. Raywood. and most “SNL” craftspeople kick into high gear with scripts now in hand—knowing that’s not a lot of time to move from page to live show. The stakes are even tighter for pre-recorded sketches, which shoot on Fridays and therefore have less breathing room.
Broecker described how much of the process is driven by the writers’ specificity. “A great part about ‘SNL’ is that. because it’s a writer-driven show. the writers tend to be very specific in their desire as to what the visual is. ” he said. “As designers, we help them articulate that sometimes because they can’t necessarily articulate it.”.
Broecker works from 10 p.m. to midnight on Wednesdays. He meets with actors and writers before returning at 8 a.m. the next morning—an early start that effectively turns the night’s work into next-day momentum.
Raywood follows a similar rhythm. He meets with director Liz Patrick on Wednesday nights to create a plan for each sketch. “Wednesday night is kind of our production meeting on each sketch,” Raywood said.
Even when the teams have an approach, the week doesn’t always go smoothly. Sometimes the writers and cast deliver challenges meant to keep everyone sharp. Raywood pointed to the sketch unpredictability that shows up “at least every other show. ” describing them as the ones that are “really fun.” He specifically singled out Mikey (Day) and Streeter (Seidell). recalling a period when they seemed to ask. essentially. “OK. what are they going to come up with us to do now?” He added that “it was almost like Streeter had this little devil on his shoulder.”.
Raywood and Broecker don’t frame their jobs as a debate—there’s a clear house rule. “Our job is to say yes,” Raywood continued. “If we don’t think it can happen, for the most part everyone believes us. But saying no never seems to be the option. It’s not what we want to be putting out there.”
Once a path is chosen, both designers move their teams into a fast scramble to get the show-ready work done as soon as possible. Their departments lean on long-running archives—each has collections that stretch back decades of sets and costume pieces used for old “SNL” sketches.
Raywood knows, for example, that when a sketch like Jack Black’s recent Five-Timers monologue rolls around, he has old pieces that can help mount a set that’s already become familiar to viewers.
Broecker treats his costume holdings like a lifeline. He called the costume archive a “magic closet. ” a place filled with garments he can pull back out—so long as he and the writers stay aligned. He described how writers sometimes put words on the page without fully locking in the costume implications. “Sometimes writers write things that they may not actually understand what it means in terms of a costume,” he said. “So it’s sort of also getting them to really pinpoint down sometimes. ‘Is that really what you mean?. You’re saying 1890s, but you described something from 1860s.’”.
This season. Broecker said he was especially proud of the costume design in an episode hosted by Ryan Gosling—an actor he described as someone “not afraid to really go for character and really go for wanting to make it a little larger than it may need.” Broecker said he believes “’SNL’ lives in a space between naturalism and farce. ” and that Gosling understands the aesthetic and pushes the limits. He also praised repeat cast members who “sort of understand” the space and “aren’t afraid” to get in there.
One Gosling sketch leaned into that strange-between-worlds energy. He played a strange man in a gold-sequined suit with red glasses. a bolo tie. and a Padawan braid—trying to force a bride and groom to repeatedly kiss at a wedding. Another pre-recorded segment placed Gosling in a Willy Wonka-esque outfit as the leader of a bakery. surrounded by Oompa Loompa-like minions who keep killing themselves.
Broecker talked through one design challenge from that material: the look of the “weird bug heads” in the monologue. He said Ryan Gosling described something to the team—“A space alien praying mantis head”—and because the dancers were female. the team had to figure out how they would be danced with. Broecker added that he did “this weird sketch,” and then watched how the team translated it into three dimensions.
Raywood’s pride, meanwhile, came from work connected to Jack Black’s hosting appearance. Since it was Black’s fifth time hosting. Raywood said he got to dust off the old Five-Timers set. then add fresh layers as needed. The build required physical problem-solving: the set had to be set up on the floor and “rig it so that we could move the bookshelf.” Raywood said the bookshelf had to slide to reveal Jack White coming through. and then the sketch called for smoke and lights. “For a monologue, that’s a lot,” Raywood said. After the monologue ended. there was no pause—everything had to be cleared off the floor to make room for other sketches.
Raywood also pointed to something you only notice when you’ve been doing this long enough: the needs of production design can swing as cast members cycle in and out. He said second-season all-star Ashley Padilla relies more on her own physical comedy than elaborate sets. But he also noted how cast members like Sarah Sherman can introduce new kinds of production design problems. including “buckets of goop and slime.”.
“We’ve always joked about this in the art department, and I’m sure Tom feels this: We get older and the cast seems to always stay the same age,” Raywood said.
The result is a show built under pressure every single week—Wednesday planning that turns into Saturday-night execution, costumes pulled from a “magic closet,” sets made mobile at the floor-level, and design teams saying yes even when the sketches get wild.
Saturday Night Live SNL Tom Broecker Keith Raywood Lorne Michaels Eugene Lee Liz Patrick Ryan Gosling Jack Black Jack White Mikey Day Streeter Seidell costume design production design